


pickin’ up a penny with a press on

by ohmygodwhy



Series: sweet pea's crush on fangs (and other stories) [8]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, Fix-It, Gen, House Parties, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant, Season/Series 02, Self-Discovery, Teenage Drama, archie and sweet pea WILL bond i WILL make it happen, confusing teen feelings, will say right off the bat that the first 3 relationship tags are the endgame for this one
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:21:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 42,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23888893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmygodwhy/pseuds/ohmygodwhy
Summary: “Get their asses,” Jones says, and raises his half empty milkshake in a toast.“To getting their asses,” Toni says loudly, and the rest of the serpents echo; Sweet Pea smiles, even though it’s messy and loud and the other customers are sending them Looks, feeling happy and more at home than he has since he walked through those fancy rich kid school doors.Fuck ‘em, he thinks, they’re gonna run this new school just like they ran the old one.(alternate title: the schools merge, this time with a little more basketball, pining, messy teen feelings and an "eat the rich" themed student council campaign)
Relationships: Archie Andrews/Jughead Jones, Cheryl Blossom/Toni Topaz, Fangs Fogarty & Jughead Jones & Sweet Pea & Toni Topaz, Fangs Fogarty/Kevin Keller, Fangs Fogarty/Sweet Pea, Jughead Jones/Sweet Pea, past fred/fp
Series: sweet pea's crush on fangs (and other stories) [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/874923
Comments: 75
Kudos: 237





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> yeah i know im the only one who still gives a shit but as i was rewatching i decided the merge could have been handled a lot better than whatever it was we got (i already blocked most of it out) and decided to take [those half done drafts from 2 yrs ago](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13699290/) and make an actual full story out of em. hopefully it doesnt take me another 3 years to finish this one
> 
> im also incapable of doing anything without making a [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0XPNcmfPSHRQySA1sV5puv?si=BPBNvFRVT323lTnDQsVITQ/) to capture the Vibes while i write.....and that's on quarantine!

Sweet Pea is a very big fan of Southside High shutting down. Maybe not a huge fan of where they’re gonna have to go instead, but anywhere’s better than that shit hole. He asks Jones what kinda food they serve there, and if it’s better than the shit they served here. Jones looks at him and says, “I mean, yeah. My dad’s cooking is better than the shit they served here.”

Which is fair. Jones also says a lot of other things, like “Why are they shutting it down now? They have to be using the land for something else,” to which Sweet Pea says “Who cares what they use it for? Fuck this place,” to which Jones answers, “I just don’t like it—it feels shady; it’s like, give an inch take a mile type shit,” to which Toni says, “Stop being paranoid,” to which Jones says, “In my experience, whenever something feels shady, it usually ends up being shady,” to which Sweet Pea says, “Whatever, we’ll deal with it when it happens,” to which Jones gives him an insultingly unimpressed look, so Sweet Pea snatches that stupid hat off his head to put an end to the conversation.

So what if it’s shady? Most shit that happens in this shitty town is shady. At least they’ll have clean bathrooms. Like, yeah, they’re gonna have to share the bathrooms with asshole rich kids, but they’ll be clean. 

Jones doesn’t seem too happy to be back at his old school, which Sweet Pea can get, sure. From what he’s heard, he wasn’t exactly well-liked, what with going to a school full of rich kids, but it’s not like he’s being thrown to the wolves by himself again. He tells him this, the night before the new semester starts; FP’s still in prison at his point, so they’re hanging at the trailer, and Sweet Pea says, “It’s not gonna be like it was before, dumbass.” 

When Jones just gives him this confused look and says, “Huh?”, Sweet Pea scoffs.

“You’re not gonna be the only Southside kid there, this time. I’m sure you used to get your ass kicked all the time,” he ignores Jones’ offended noise, “but we’re all gonna be there, too. Chill out.”

Jones frowns at him, but actually seems to consider his words—which he should always do, thanks. 

“Yeah,” Toni agrees, ‘cause Jones always seems to listen to her more, for some annoying reason, “I know you don’t wanna have to deal with all… that, and it’s not like any of us are exactly thrilled about it, either. But we’ll be fine.”

That’s what makes Jones, grudgingly, agree, because of course it is. Sweet Pea doesn’t take it personally. Besides, he knows Fang’s been kinda worried about the whole… rich people school having rich people in it thing, even though he’s just as glad as Sweet Pea is to be out of their old shit hole. So, whatever. If it helps both of them calm the fuck down, good. 

The first few days are rough, ‘cause of course they are. He kinda sees why Jones is so fucking dramatic all the time, if this is the place and people he spent so many years around. Whole parade procession down the stairs to tell them all they weren’t wanted at the school, as if they didn’t already know that—that redhead chick calling them all delinquents like she wasn’t the one who started off the drag race. Hypocrite shit. 

They have to take their jackets off, which, whatever, but Jones has to be dramatic about it and then he and Fangs have to step in before he gets the shit kicked out of him again ‘cause he never knows when to shut up. 

Jones gets the shit kicked out of him again a few days later—like, actually does, this time—after he gets suspended and then unsuspended, because giving up and wearing the stupid uniform doesn’t mean he shut up about anything else. Bulldogs instead of Ghoulies, because he apparently loves getting the shit kicked out of him that much. 

“You must love getting the shit kicked out of you,” Sweet Pea tells him, leaning against the bathroom door to keep it shut while Jones tries to stop his nose from bleeding and ruining his stupid uniform shirt. 

“Fuck you,” Jones says, but his mouth is muffled by the paper towel he’s holding against his nose, so it mostly falls flat. “It wasn’t my fault—I wasn’t wearing my jacket or anything.” 

Sweet Pea scowls, “You want me to kick their asses?” he asks, because he would do it for Fangs and Toni and he’s already done it for Jones with the Ghoulies who kicked the shit out of him that one time. That Mantle asshole or whoever it was doesn’t seem so tough compared to them. Sweet Pea’s pretty sure he could take him. 

Jones shakes his head, though, “You wanna get suspended?”

“They should get suspended. Or at least get detention.” 

“They won’t get either if you pick a fight.”

“They hit first,” just because someone has to say it, and then, “Is your nose broken?”

“No. You wanna talk to Weatherbee about it?” his voice is heavy with sarcasm, even through the paper towel. 

“Get that Andrews kid to do it, then.” 

“To tell Weatherbee or to kick their asses?”

“I’d say both, but that Andrews kid kicks like a bitch.”

Jones tosses the bloody wad of wet paper towel at him. Sweet Pea makes a face and tosses it in the trash. 

“I don’t wanna get Archie into any shit with any of them,” he says. 

“Isn’t he, like, your best friend?” Sweet Pea asks. Kicking someone’s ass for your best friend is like, in the best friend rulebook. It’s just what you do. 

“Yeah,” Jones shrugs, dabbing at the blood on his collar, “And I don’t wanna get him mixed up in anything he doesn’t have to. He’s already got enough to deal with right now.”

“That’s stupid,” Sweet Pea says. Watches Jones try to stop the stupid uniform from staining for a few more moments. Honestly, he thinks, how were the teachers not expecting them to get their asses beat when they’re basically taping a Southside sticker to their backs? At least when they wore their jackets they got to choose what the sign said. “Also, that’s not coming out with water.” 

“I know,” Jones sighs. 

The bell rings. Jones swears. 

Later, when the teacher asks Jones what he did to his shirt, Jones smiles and says, “Sorry, a football player kicked the shit outta me, and blood’s harder to clean out than you’d think.”

Sweet Pea bursts out laughing. They both get detention after school. (There are only other Southside kids in detention with them, not a non-stupid-uniform-shirt in sight, so it isn’t that bad to sit through. Especially not with Jones telling them about every embarrassing thing he can remember that Mantle guy doing since the age of seven.)

Afterwards, the Andrews kid is waiting for them outside. Sweet Pea only notices the guy when Jones slows to a halt next to him. He follows his gaze to see the Andrews kid look up sharply from where he’s leaning against the closed door of his truck. Huh. He hasn’t seen the guy around since the fun little welcoming party they got the first day. 

“Jug,” he says. 

“Archie,” Jones says, and he sounds surprised. Which makes the Andrews kid look hurt, for a second, which Sweet Pea thinks is dumb because he’s the one who hasn’t been around, before he remembers that he doesn’t actually care. 

“I… heard you got detention,” the kid continues, glancing briefly at Sweet Pea with that wariness everyone seems to carry around them before refocusing on Jones, “For, like, a fight?”

“It wasn’t a fight,” Sweet Pea scoffs before Jones can open his mouth, “Your football friends kicked the shit out of him.”

“God, why do you love saying that? It wasn’t even that bad,” he says that last part to Archie, who’s looking at him with big dumb puppy eyes, “I got detention for being a smart ass in class--the usual.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Jones crosses his arm and shrugs, “It wasn’t a big deal, Arch. You’ve been busy.”

“Still,” he says, and then they both don’t seem to know what else to say, so Sweet Pea rolls his eyes.

“You actually gonna do anything about it?” he asks; Jones elbows him, so he elbows Jones back.

Andrews looks only a tiny bit offended, but not enough to say anything—he actually nods, which is annoying of him. “Yeah, I’ll—I’ll talk to them. Are you… okay?”

This is getting painful for all of them, so Sweet Pea throws an arm heavy over Jones’ shoulder and says, “He’s fine.”

Jones tenses, but doesn’t push his arm off like he did the first few times Sweet Pea tried it, “I’m fine,” he tells Andrews, “Not even in my top ten.”

Archie seems to know whatever the hell that means, ‘cause he relaxes a little. “Okay,” he says, “I really will talk to him.”

There’s a weird tension in the air that must be because Andrews is, like, here. Sweet Pea wonders absently what exactly he’s been so busy with lately. He and Jones have been staring at each other in the hallways and shit a lot; it’s been getting kinda ridiculous. But if they’re not gonna actually say anything else, he doesn’t wanna keep standing here and subjecting them all to this.

“Okay,” Sweet Pea says decisively, visibly startling them both, “Well, we got shit to do, so…” 

Archie blinks over at him, like the asshole forgot he was still there. “Oh,” he says, and then his attention is back on Jones, “Okay. I just—wanted to see if you were good.”

“I’m good,” Jones says. There’s a moment, and then two, where they both seem to be waiting for something. Whatever they’re waiting for, it doesn’t come, so Andrews waves an awkward goodbye and turns to open his car door. Sweet Pea takes the opportunity to tug Jones along before either of them can give one of their long, dramatic looks.

“That was fucking _painful_ ,” he says. This time Jones does shove his arm off.

The uniforms really are fucking annoying. For the first time since he got it, he kinda regrets choosing his neck as the spot for his tattoo. It’s not that he looks bad in turtlenecks--he looks great in them, because he looks good in almost everything--but they kinda clash with the look he’s spent all this time trying to keep up. And they get all hot under the uniform shirt. 

“I know we’re trying to, like, lay low. But these uniforms are really fuckin' annoying.”

“You’ve said that already,” Toni says.

“Like five times,” Jones adds, “Maybe six.”

“I think they’re annoying,” Fangs says, because Fangs has always got his back. 

Sweet Pea points at him, “Fangs thinks they’re annoying.”

“We all think they’re annoying,” Jones says, and the fucker’s laughing at him, “You don’t have to keep saying it.”

Sweet Pea rolls his eyes, leaning back to sit on one of the desks in the empty classroom they’ve claimed—there’s not much room for them in the pretentiously big student lounge. “I’ll say it ‘till we don’t have to wear them anymore. You’re working on that, right?” he asks Jones. 

Jones tilts his head, “Working on what?”

“On getting us out of these stupid ass uniforms. It’s not fair that we’re the only ones who have to wear them. And it’s shitty fabric.”

“You think Weatherbee’s gonna listen to shit I have to say at this point?”

Sweet Pea almost throws his hands in the air like a cartoon character, “So get that Andrews kid to do it!”

“Literally why are you so obsessed with Archie?” 

Sweet Pea doesn’t take the bait, “Uh, ‘cause he owes us? After everything he pulled at the race--and all that Red Circle shit before that?”

“He kinda has a point,” Toni says.

“He disbanded it like two days later.” Jones defends weakly.

“He still pulled a gun on us,” Fangs chimes in. 

Jones stopped trying to defend the guy on that front after he thought about it for more than a few minutes."

“Don’t know if Weatherbee would listen to him, either. Since he did, y’know, start a vigilante group and buy a gun.”

Goddammit. He has a point. 

“Then get one of your other Northside friends to do it.”

He pushes down the urge to ask if he could just ask that girl he broke up with to do something, or the even stronger urge to ask if he even has any other Northside friends other than the Andrews kid. 

Jones sighs all dramatic, “God, okay, I’ll try. Just stop complaining about it.”

To Jones’ credit, he really does try. Eventually, he and Toni put together a petition or something about equality and fairness and how it’s insulting to assume that no one who isn’t from the Northside can afford, like, clothes. Whatever. He signs it, obviously. Most Southside kids who give a fuck sign in. Jones gets Andrews to sign it, hopefully during a less painfully awkward conversation, and Andrews gets some other people to sign it—no other football guys, of course, but that girl Jones used to date signs it, and so does that redhead chick? And the sheriff’s kid? For some reason? 

He’s pretty sure the sheriff kid agreeing with them is what makes the principal cave—god knows he doesn’t give a shit about what the rest of them have to say. He announces it one morning over the speakers with the rest of the usual shit—all casual and quick, like he’s hoping people won’t notice. Sweet Pea and Fangs stand up to leave immediately. When the teacher asks them where exactly they think they’re going, Sweet Pea says "to change, obviously; I’m not sitting through another day in this god awful uniform." Jones steps in to be all “we’ll be right back, sorry,” even though he’s out the door just as fast as they are. They’ve been waiting for this day for long enough that of course they have a change of clothes in their lockers. They catch Toni and Ricky in the hallway, both of them _running_ . And they all got on _his_ ass about how much he hated the uniforms?

They change in the bathroom. Sweet Pea doesn’t bother going into a stall, and Jones is halfway out of his shirt before he slams his stall door shut. They can’t wear their jackets, obviously, but it feels great to be in his own damn clothes again. 

The Blossom girl rolls her eyes when they get back to class, and says, “I see the plaid is back.”

Sweet Pea is in a good enough mood to laugh. 

Riverdale High has a huge indoor cafeteria _and_ a whole ass outdoor field with big trees and picnic tables and shit. Sweet Pea would try to be bitter if he wasn’t too busy enjoying the hell out of it. The grass is _green_ . He can sit under a _tree._

It’s kinda ridiculous, though, the divide you can see between the two schools, even though they’re technically ‘one’, now and no one has to wear those god awful uniforms anymore. Northside kids sit on one side of the room and/or field, and South sits on the other. The Serpents claim a few tables on the far side near a few trees three days in, and no one else tries to sit there again. Jones sits with them, obviously, and that Andrews kid acts all hurt that he wouldn’t wanna sit with him and the people who either a) kicked the shit out of him, or b) kinda condoned it. 

The kid sits with them sometimes as some kind of compromise—sits with Jones, mostly, now that they’ve seemed to move on from their tense painful conversation phase—and is literally the only one who makes it uncomfortable, sitting all stiff like Sweet Pea’s gonna pull his knife on him or steal his food — like Jones hasn’t eaten all of his stupid fries by now. He’s not even being subtle about it, either. Andrews is basically just letting him take the best thing on his tray.

(The first time he walked over to their table—trying very hard to ignore the way most people were looking at his bright blue and gold jacket because obviously they were—Sweet Pea almost thought Andrews was gonna ask Jones to come sit with him again. Instead, he glanced briefly at the rest of them, before tilting his head at the little bit of room on the bench next to Jones and went, “Can I, uh, sit?” 

Jones had blinked at him, and then glanced back at the rest of them in a silent sort of question—the kind of easy to read look he’s used to giving Fangs—which maybe Sweet Pea appreciated. Toni shrugged, which was as good of a yes he was gonna get. “Sure,” Jones said, scooting over and making room for Andrews. Sweet Pea had stared him down a little, just for fun, until Jones kicked his leg under the table and told him to knock it off.)

It’s not his business, though, so Sweet Pea doesn’t point it out. He doesn’t give a shit where Andrews sits, as long as he doesn't bring his bulldog friends along with him or sit like, directly in his line of sight or anything. Toni gets a kick out of it, anyways, so it’s whatever.

That scary redhead Blossom girl follows her over one day, sits on the edge of the bench with her legs crossed and her head tilted so that her hair falls over her shoulder all pretty and wavy. Sweet Pea’s not poetic, but he’s pretty sure she’s showing off, the way she did back at the drag race that she apparently forgot about when she called them all delinquents, but Toni’s eating that shit up like she’s been living in a desert for the past year and the Blossom girl’s the only source of water in the whole goddamn world. 

Thirsty bitch, he doesn’t say, but he catches her eye and she smacks the back of his head anyways. The girl says a lot of shit he doesn’t understand but Toni does, ‘cause Toni’s smart, and then stands and throws her hair over her shoulder and walks off like she’s on a goddamn runway. 

“I can’t tell if she’s confident or just has a stick up her ass.” he says while Toni watches her leave. 

He turns to Jones, cause he’s the one who went to school with her, but Jones just shrugs, “It’s Cheryl. That’s just how she is.”

Which isn’t an answer, actually, but whatever. He pulls Fangs’ school-provided cardigan he still keeps around over his head and goes back to sleep. 

Jones catches him after English class a few days later and tells him that he should go find Andrews and give him his copy of Crime and Punishment back. Sweet Pea tells him that he wouldn’t have used the damn thing if he knew it belonged to Andrews and Jones tells him that well, he did, and Jones has some shit for the stupid newspaper to go do, so Sweet Pea has to get it to Andrews before the next period, ‘cause “that’s when he has English and he needs the book.” 

Jesus, Sweet Pea says, why is everything such a goddamn ordeal around here? And Jones says you’re the one making it an ordeal, just find him and give him his stupid book back. Sweet Pea says fine, fuck, and Jones says thank you in a way that’s more exasperated than thankful, and turns to walk away.

Sweet Pea turns to go stomp off and find Andrews, when he realizes he has no idea where the hell he would be right now. It’s not like he knows where the asshole spends his time. Everything’s such a goddamn ordeal around here, he thinks, and goes to check the pretentious student lounge.

He isn’t in the pretentious student lounge. Or the music room. Sweet Pea wanders down a few annoyingly long hallways, and finds himself at the locker room entrance. Andrews is a football player. He might be in the locker room, right? Worth a shot.

He pushes the door open with his hip, and freezes halfway through the doorway. He only sees it for a moment, but it’s crystal fuckin clear: Fangs and Sheriff Keller’s kid, all over each other against the lockers. Fangs’ hands are in Keller’s hair, and Keller’s—Sweet Pea turns around and walks right back out the door. He doesn’t bother to try to find Andrews, dropping the book in the direction of where his locker probably might be, and tries to figure out why his heart is racing so fast. 

It’s not a big deal—he could never have a problem with Fangs. 

Anyways, it’s not really any of his business. He wasn’t even supposed to be in the locker room. He’s not a football player, and he’s definitely not a bulldog, and he didn’t even want to be looking for Andrews but Jones is a lazy asshole who can’t just lend his own book out. They could’ve just shared the book. It’s not like Sweet Pea was gonna contribute to the class conversation either way. Point is, he didn’t mean to walk in on… whatever it is he walked in on. (He knows exactly what it is he walked in on.)

He just—he didn’t even know Fangs _liked_ boys, is the thing! Especially not soft preppy ones who were related to the sheriff— the guy who locked him and Toni in a cell overnight like, a month or two ago! And thought Jones killed that rich kid!

He wonders vaguely, in his hurry down the hall, if the sheriff’s kid has a thing for Serpents or gang-affiliation or something. Which would be weird and potentially dangerous for them if Keller ever found out and decided to have them all arrested for defiling his precious little goody-two-shoes son.

He complains about it loudly later, after last period, because he can’t complain quietly, and Jones glances up from his homework. “Kevin has a Serpent kink?” He asks, eyebrows raised. “That’s weird.” 

“Mister Goody-Two-Shoes likes to live on the edge, huh?” Toni asks. 

“He won’t be the one getting in trouble,” Sweet Pea says, and, when they look at him like they can’t believe he’s being the voice of reason here, “What if he’s just like, a rebound for Joaquin or something? Talk to that Keller kid about it.”

Jones blinks, furrows his eyebrows a little bit, “Why would I talk to Kevin about his love life? It’s none of my business.”

“It’s kinda your business.” 

”It’s not like I’ve ever asked about it before; it’d be weird.”

“You won’t talk to Andrews, you won’t talk to Keller—do you actually have friends outside of us, or were you making that up?” 

Jones scowls, shoulders drawing up tight, “Talk to Fangs yourself if you’re so worried about it.”

“Talk to me about what?” Fangs asks. Sweet Pea swivels around in sync with the other two, both of their heads tilted up. It’s like something out of a goddamn sitcom.

“Your locker room make-out with Keller’s kid,” Toni says. 

“We think Kevin has a Serpent kink,” Jones adds helpfully, because he’s an asshole. 

Fangs just shrugs. “He might.”

“Weird,” Jones says, turning back to his homework.

“Is he a good kisser?” Toni asks, scooting over to let Fangs sit down. 

“He’s…above average.”

“He good at anything else?”

“Alright, I’m tapping outta this conversation,” Jones says when Fangs grins and opens his mouth. He gathers his shit and throws his backpack over his shoulders. “I gotta meet Archie at the library, anyways.”

“See you,” Fangs says, and Toni gives a half hearted salute. 

“Try not to gossip too much,” he tosses over his shoulder, hitting Sweet Pea on the arm as he leaves. 

Sweet Pea’s not super interested in hearing about the other things Keller’s kid is above average in, but he sits down in the empty spot Jones left anyway. Fangs looks happy, even if it leaves a sour taste in his mouth to think about _why,_ but if he doesn’t think about it too hard—which he doesn’t—it’s fine. Plus, it’s not like he’s gonna go _meet Archie at the library,_ too.

He’s been catching Toni hanging around the Blossom girl more and more often, spending passing periods talking at her locker and pretending not to tangle their feet togather under the table at lunch. Toni is always very adamant that her love life is “none of anyone’s business, thanks,” but Sweet Pea asks about it anyway. 

He props his head on the bar and watches Toni wipe down classes and says, “So. That Blossom chick.”

She freezes for a moment, mid-wipe, before she keeps cleaning. “What about her?”

Sweet Pea rolls his eyes; she and Jones love being all cryptic and shit, “Don't bullshit. You spend like every minute with her at school.”

“What, d’you miss me?”

“Stop—deflecting,” he says, remembering the word last-second.

“Big word,” she says, mock-impressed; he’d be mad at her for making fun of him if he didn’t know she was joking. 

“Shut up. Are you guys just,” he makes a gesture that has Toni reaching across the bar to shove him, “or is it, like, serious?”

“Pretty sure it’s none of your business.”

“Come _on_ , Toni. I’m just tryna look out for you.”

Her face finally softens, and she sighs. “I appreciate it, Sweets. But I’ll be fine—it’s not super serious. She’s just…” 

“Scary?” he offers, “Maybe a little nuts?”

“Interesting,” Toni argues, “She’s—not what I expected.” 

Personally, Sweet Pea hasn’t seen much evidence of, like, emotional depth. But he also hasn’t been spending all his time at school with her, so what can he say about it. Besides, he trusts Toni—if she says she’s fine, he believes it.

“At least she’s prettier than the last girl you dated,” he says. 

“Mikaela was fine,” Toni laughs, “You just didn’t like her ‘cause she always beat you at pool.”

There’s a school assembly next week, because that’s something that Riverdale High does on the regular, apparently, where they talk about the Fantastic Opportunities coming up in the next few weeks--shit about clubs, and sports, and student programs and all that. Sweet Pea mostly zones out through the whole thing, trying to ignore the fact that Keller is sitting, like, nearer to them than he usually is. Like, near enough that he and Fangs can keep shooting little looks at each other without having to strain themselves about it. 

He snaps back into his body when they mention basketball tryouts. He’s been playing with his brother since he was little, and they never had a real team back at SS High. Toni nudges him meaningfully in the shoulder, and Fangs leans over to whisper, “Dude, they have a basketball team.”

“There’s no way I’m trying out to play with a bunch’a these clowns,” he scoffs. Toni shoots him a look that means she doesn’t believe him at all. He crosses his arms, even as the idea makes itself comfortable in the back of his head.

“I dunno,” Fangs says, “we’re already here. Might as well make the most of it, right?”

Goddammit, he thinks. He already knows he’s gonna cave, if Fangs thinks it’s a good idea, but he’s still gonna make a show of Coming To A Decision about it anyways. Just to make a point.

“I guess,” he says. And then, when Fangs raises his eyebrows at him, “I’ll think about it.”

“Think about what?” Jones asks, done listening to the teacher now that they’ve moved on from talking about scholarships and shit for the seniors.

“Sweets is gonna try out for the basketball team,” Toni says, even though he actually has not decided yet.

Jones raises an eyebrow, “I think Reggie’s trying out, too,” he says, unfortunately, “Well, I mean he was on the team last year, so I assume he’ll make it again this year. If you played last year do you have to try out again the year after?”

“Isn’t your best friend on the football team?” Toni asks, unimpressed.

Jones shrugs, “I just go to watch him run around during the games. I don’t know shit about the process.”

“If Mantle’s on the team,” Sweet Pea says, bringing them back to the more important topic, “there’s no fucking way I’m trying out. I’d lose my mind.”

Jones is the one to shoot him a look, this time, “Don’t tell me you’re… _scared_ of Reggie?”

Sweet Pea knows it’s fucking bait, and he is not going to take it. “Of course I’m not _scared_ of that asshole,” he bites out.

“I don’t know,” Jones says slowly, “Not trying out just ‘cause you know he’s gonna be there? Kinda sounds like you’re scared of him to me .”

“Fuck off, Jones,” he says, “Reggie fuckin' Mantle is not gonna stop me from doing what I want.”

“Which is what?” 

“Trying out for the stupid basketball team,” Sweet Pea says, and he’s self-aware enough to know he took the bait. But he was probably going to try out for the team anyway, even without Jones goading him into it, so. Joke’s on him.

Fangs puts hand against his mouth so he doesn’t laugh too loud and get them called out by one of the teachers who’s had her eyes on them for the last few minutes, and says, “You’ll make it, easy,” which makes Jones’ stupid goading worth it. 

“When are tryouts?” Toni asks.

“Next week, I think,” Sweet Pea says. 

Toni nods, decisive, “You’ll make it, easy,” she repeats, and for some reason that was the last straw for the teacher eyeing them, and she wags her fingers at them and shushes loudly. Which just makes Fangs have to press his hand against his mouth harder, which makes Sweet Pea have to bite back a laugh, too. 

Toni shushes them both and Sweet Pea pretends to focus very hard on the principal talking about the marching band and how people need to stop breaking the instruments before quickly changing the topic to talk about student council elections. Fangs has stopped shooting looks at Keller in favor of whisper running commentary into Sweet Pea’s ear; if that makes some annoying, vindictive part of him happy, then that’s his own business.

Tryouts are, in fact, next Tuesday, after school, in the gym. Fangs has detention for some dumb reason and Toni and Jones are off doing things with their respective Northside crushes, so he’s on his own for this one. Which is fine with him; if he feels a little like he’s walking into a lion’s den, well—snakes bite, too. 

When he shoves the gym doors open, he feels eyes on him immediately. Mantle’s included, who crosses his arms and squares his shoulders like he owns the whole damn gym. 

“What do you want?” Mantle asks, not overtly hostile but not _not_ hostile. 

So Sweet Pea crosses his arms and lifts his chin right back and says, “I’m here to try out,” plain and simple, daring anyone to try to tell him that he can’t. 

He thinks it’s a little ridiculous they’ve gotta make such a big deal about it, but he’s beginning to realize that everything around is such a goddamn ordeal, like, on principle. 

A man he assumes is the coach walks in, talking to… fucking Andrews. So he supposes that Jones is _not_ off doing something with his Northside crush. Of course he’d be here too—he just can’t catch a fucking break, huh. Nobody tries to tell him that he can’t try out, though, so they begin. 

He can tell the other guys are going harder on him than they usually would—getting up in his space a little too aggressively, actual contact, Mantle elbowing him in the side to get the ball. But Sweet Pea isn’t a bad player—he knows he isn’t a bad player. He’s been playing, however unofficially, since he was seven and his brother took him to the park on sixth with a basketball court. 

The afternoon runs its course, and, almost grudgingly, the coach calls Sweet Pea’s name as he goes down the list of guys who made it. The look on Mantle’s face is enough to make the shitshow that’s gonna be “getting along” with his new rich boy team worth it. Enough, even, to not quell his joy when he announces that Andrews made it, too.

“Welcome to the team, boys,” the coach says, and then they’re dismissed. Sweet Pea watches the rest of The Team go congratulate Andrews and the other rich kids who made it, and rolls his eyes. He doesn’t need a fucking welcome committee, he thinks, and turns to go grab his shit and break the news in the group chat—maybe they can all get dinner or something to celebrate.

“Hey,” he hears, much closer to him than he expected anyone to be; he spins around quickly on instinct, reaching for the switch blade that he does not have in his gym short pocket. Andrews blinks up at him with wide eyes, and takes half a step back.

“What?” Sweet Pea says, when all Andrews does is stare at him for a few seconds.

“Uh,” Andrews says, and glances down briefly, almost fucking bashful, “I just wanted to say congrats. For making the team.”

It shouldn’t throw Sweet Pea off, considering Jones is always saying that even though he bought a gun, Andrews is a good little boy at heart, or whatever, but it does. Which is annoying. 

The two of them stare at each other for a minute, before Sweet Pea scoffs and slings his backpack over his shoulder. He notices that the gym has gone silent—Mantle and the rest very obviously listening in. Probably to make sure he doesn’t punch Andrews’ lights out or something, he thinks, only a little bitter.

“Sure,” he says, because he has the sudden, weirdly intense urge to prove them wrong, “You too, I guess.”

Andrews doesn’t quite smile at him, but it looks like he tries to. He reaches out to pat Sweet Pea on the shoulder or something, and then—wisely—seems to think better of it.

“I’ll, uh, see you at practice on Thursday,” Andrews says, and Sweet Pea doesn’t mention the fact that they actually have class together everyday, “Tell Jug I said hi?’

Sweet Pea resists the urge to roll his eyes at how obvious he is, and nods instead. “Sure,” he says again. He spares a glance at Mantle and the rest, and has to admit a grudging respect for the guy for not looking away like the rest of them.

“See you Thursday,” Sweet Pea says, mostly so he can laugh at the way Mantle scrunches his nose up at the idea.

They do go out for dinner to celebrate, and Sweet Pea doesn’t even have to be the one to suggest —it’s Jones, obviously, ‘cause the fucker will take any opportunity to go out to eat, despite barely ever having the cash for it. He says he just has a running tab at Pop’s that he’ll pay off eventually, but Sweet Pea’s pretty sure that most of the time Pop just gives him free shit ‘cause he feels bad for him. He’s pretty sure Jones knows that, too, but it’s probably easier to imagine the idea of paying it off one day over having someone’s pity. 

So they go out to Pop’s and squeeze into a few booths in the back. Sweet Pea ends up pressed up against the window with Jones next to him and Fangs and Toni across from him. Sweet Pea watches with a detached sort of fascination as Jones goes through two burgers, an order of onion rings and two and a half orders of fries—he asks Toni if she’s gonna finish hers, and she pushes them across the table with a bemused “by all means, take ‘em,”—and listens to Fangs talk about all the crazy shit he’s heard rich kids say in the hallways. 

“Did you know some of them have, like, a full basketball court? Like in their backyards?”

“Reggie has a pool, too,” Jones adds helpfully.

Sweet Pea scoffs, “He would have both. He’s fuckin’ annoying.”

Fangs grins at him from across the table, mouth curled into a familiar teasing curve, and the fucking neon lights everywhere make him look like something straight out of a stupid teen movie. “Gonna be fun being on a team with him, huh?”

Sweet Pea flicks a fry at him, and Fangs laughs and pops it in his mouth. “It’s gonna be shit,” he says, “But it’ll be fun to show him up.”

Jones huffs a laugh next to him, “Please,” he says, “I’d pay to watch you steal his spotlight.”

Toni tilts her head in agreement, “You’re representing all of us, Sweets,” she says, mock-serious, “You better get his ass.”

Sweet Pea grins, taking a sip of his milkshake, “Oh yeah,” he remembers, tilting his head to look at Jones, “Your boyfriend told me he says hi.”

Jones is in a good enough mood that he doesn’t even do his usual “he’s not my boyfriend” routine, just smiles all fond and says, “He made the team, too, right?”

Sweet Pea makes as disgusted a noise as he can, just so Jones will elbow him so he can elbow him right back, “I’m gonna have to deal with him _and_ Mantle,” he laments, “Why’d I even try out?”

“‘Cause you’re a baddie,” Fangs jokes.

“And you can finally join a real basketball team instead of dicking around with four dudes at the park,” Toni adds.

“Those things are both true,” Sweet Pea relents, “God, it better be worth it.”

“Get their asses,” Jones says, and raises his half empty milkshake in a toast.

“To getting their asses,” Toni says loudly, and the rest of the serpents echo; Sweet Pea smiles, even though it’s messy and loud and the other customers are sending them Looks, feeling happy and more at home than he has since he walked through those fancy rich kid school doors. 

Fuck ‘em, he thinks, they’re gonna run this new school just like they ran the old one. Aren’t student council elections coming up? They didn’t have that fancy shit at SS High. 

Suddenly, a crazy fucking idea hits him.

“Hey,” he says, and the other three glance at him. “I just had a crazy fucking idea.”

“Yeah?” Toni asks.

“What if we ran for student council?”

The three of them laugh a little, until they all seem to realize, at the same time—something out of a damn sitcom, all the fucking time—that he isn’t joking.

“...You’re serious.” Toni says slowly.

“Fuck yeah, I’m serious,” Sweet Pea says; he crosses his arm and leans back in his seat, oddly self conscious for a moment, until he sees Fangs’ starting to grin—that familiar one that says I’m in before he even has to say the words.

“That,” Jones starts, “ _is_ a crazy fucking idea. But I kinda vibe.”

Sweet Pea had a feeling Jones would be on board—if only to see how it would all go down.

Toni bites her lip in that way that means she’s Deeply Considering. “It would be funny to see everyone lose their shit about it.”

Jones points a fry at her in agreement, “It would be fucking hilarious. Someone would definitely pop a blood vessel.”

“They’d have to at least let us run,” Toni says.

“Can you imagine if we won?” Jones laughs, “Riots in the streets.”

“We could change policy and shit,” Toni says, “Or, like, stop them from doing the weird themed lunch days and just give us normal options.”

“I like the themed lunch days,” Fangs frowns, “I think they’re fun.”

“Then we keep the themed lunch days,” Sweet Pea says decisively, ignoring the pointed Looks Jones and Toni both throw him, “And… change policy, whatever that means.”

“Who’s gonna, like, actually run for president?” Jones asks; the three of them glance at Sweet Pea, who blinks back at them.

“What?”

“It was your idea,” Toni says. “So…” 

“Looks like you’re running for president,” Jones finishes for her.

Sweet Pea is about to call the whole fucking thing off, because student council president sounds like way more work than he was thinking that he, personally, would have to do, but then he glances at Fangs and his excited smile and the stupid neon lighting, and feels his heart race a little—excitement, he tells himself, just excitement, ‘cause Fangs getting excited always gets him excited, too.

“Fuck it,” he says, “I’m running for president.”

It’s Fangs, this time, who raises his milkshake glass and says, “Sweet Pea’s running for president!”

The rest of the serpents echo, a little surprised but still fired up. Pop, caught in the excitement carrying a plate of fries, smiles at him and says, “Glad to hear the news. If it counted, you’d have my vote,” and keeps walking before Sweet Pea can answer.

That, for some reason, however fake it might be, is what hits him the hardest. “Pop Tate would vote for me,” he says, “Should that be my slogan?”

Jones laughs, throwing his arm over Sweet Pea’s shoulder for once—only possible because Sweet Pea isn’t towering over him at the moment—and says, “One hundred fucking percent.”

They’re at Pop’s much later into the night than they probably should be, but it’s open twenty four seven, so they don’t even get kicked out for it. 

Shit, Sweet Pea thinks, throwing a leg over his motorcycle, they got rid of the shitty uniforms, he made the basketball team, and he’s gonna run for student council president. Not a bad first month, he decides, and slides his helmet on so he can race Fangs back to Sunnyside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can u tell i never tried out for high school basketball? i simply went to watch my friends run around the court. anyw finals are coming............drop a comment for emotional support and also come [talk to me](http://gaycinema.tumblr.com/) if u wanna


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I know,” Fangs says, and he sounds fond, almost, and it carries through the phone in a way that makes it heavy in Sweet Pea’s hand, “Just—try not to seem too mad when you look at him, okay? For me?”
> 
> He knows he doesn’t have to ask—Sweet Pea was already mentally preparing himself to stop thinking about being tossed into a holding cell whenever he looks at the guy—but he does, ‘cause Fangs is nice like that.
> 
> “Fine,” Sweet Pea says. “For you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the word count has shot up higher than i planned it to.......i say as if i wasnt the one who gave myself all these subplots to work with. idk if it'll end up adding to the chapter count or just make the chapters longer...much to consider

Student council shit doesn’t actually start until next month or so, so they do a little planning for it—like, they collectively decide that Toni is the better candidate for Vice President, ‘cause she’s able to reel Sweet Pea back in in a way that Fangs usually does the opposite of; Sweet Pea’s self aware enough to know that he and Fangs would hype each other up into doing something dumb—and then leave it for later. 

He’s got Things to do, now—practice three days a week and games most Saturdays. He’s not sure how the fuck they’re able to play so many games when there’s, like, maybe three schools close enough to drive on a good-weathered day, but he has enough fun to not think about it for long. 

The first day of practice is a little rough—more exercise than he’s been used to lately—but he’s always been good at catching on quick. Most of the guys are a little wary around him, but the coach gets used to him within the hour, and isn’t grudging with his feedback the way he was letting him onto the team. He seems like the kinda guy who prioritizes having good players over caring about where they’re from. Sweet Pea supposes that it’s lucky he’s a good player and not the clumsy little shit he was at age ten. 

Andrews greets him everyday and says goodbye everyday, too, a little like he’s trying to prove something. After it gets too awkward for everyone to greet all the players _except_ Sweet Pea, a few guys follow Andrews’ lead and toss a few _what’s up_ ’s at him when he gets to the locker room.

It’s annoying. Maybe a little nice, not having everyone looking at him like he’s abouta start swinging as soon as he walks in. But if he ignores that little voice in his head who wants to be liked, it’s mostly annoying. No one’s tried to do that shoulder pat thing Andrews almost risked, so he’s still got the right amount of intimidation going for him. 

The others come to watch practice, sometimes—well, more to bum around until Sweet Pea can drive them home, since they’ve been all about “conserving gas” all of the sudden, which of course has nothing to do with the fact that Sweet Pea’s been given permission to take his brother’s truck to school. “Just walk,” he tells them, and gets a bunch of whiny _it’s too far to walk_ ’s and he doesn’t actually have a problem with them hanging around anyways, so he rolls his eyes and drops it. 

He’s never sure if Jones shows up for him or for Andrews, but it doesn’t really matter at the end of the day, ‘cause he’s usually hopping into Sweet Pea’s truck either way. Toni brings the Blossom girl sometimes, and they’ll sit at the very top of the bleachers and talk all low and secretive, and sometimes they’ll laugh loud enough for it to carry across the gym. It’s not as annoying as it should be—mostly ‘cause it’s nice knowing Toni’s happy. 

Sometimes Fangs will bring Keller around with him—or maybe Keller just tags along; never really can tell. Sometimes Sweet Pea can hear them laughing, too. For some reason, this is less of a comfort to him than it is when it’s Toni and her girl. It makes something in him uneasy, throws him off his game in a way he doesn’t like much at all. 

Sometimes Sweet Pea is spared both of the quote unquote _couples’_ company, and Jones just comes by himself, sets up camp at the top of the bleachers and pulls his laptop out. Those days aren’t as shitty as they should be. Especially not when Jones will catch his eye and do some dumb thing with his eyebrows to make him laugh. It’s better than catching him and Andrews doing that quiet, intense staring thing, no matter how funny it is to watch Andrews trip over himself about it sometimes. 

It’s only Jones watching practice today, if typing away on his laptop for most of it counts as watching. Andrews wanders over to the bleachers on their water break; he watches the two of them talk a little, visibly less awkward than that time after detention, and they both laugh a little before the coach calls them all back to the court. Jones looks up just then, and sends Sweet Pea a sarcastic little wink—and the fact that he knows he’s being sarcastic about it is just proof that they’ve been spending too much time together. He rolls his eyes, even as his stomach does something weird, which is definitely just him being out of breath or something, and turns to jog back to the group.

As practice ends, Jones makes that pointing gesture that means he’s gonna go wait in the car, and (ignoring the fact that he’s learning the fucker’s nonverbal cues, whatever that says about him) he heads to the locker room to change. 

When he closes his locker, he startles a little at Andrews, hovering a few feet away like he isn’t quite sure what he’s doing here, either.

“Hey,” he says, and then does not continue.

As usual, it’s on Sweet Pea to actually start the fucking conversation even though he’s not the one who initiated. “Yeah?” he asks. 

“I, uh, well, I guess I just wanted to say… thanks, I guess.”

Sweet Pea blinks at him; now he’s more confused than annoyed, “Huh?”

“For… looking after him—Jug, I mean. I know I haven’t—well, things were weird, for a while, after he, y’know…” 

Sweet Pea knows exactly what he’s hinting at—he was there when the guy, like, publicly dumped him on behalf of Jones’ ex, or something—but he kinda wants to hear him say it.

“After he what?” he asks, “Afraid I dunno what you’re talking about.”

A hint of frustration in the scrunch of his big ass eyebrows, and he rubs at the back of his neck, “Y’know, when he… joined the Serpents. Or whatever. We’re getting better, now that we’re all at the same school again, but it’s—not the same, yet. I’m glad he’s got people looking out for him when I can’t, y’know? So—thanks.” 

Sweet Pea crosses his arms and ignores the urge to say something about how low his standards must be if he considers driving someone to and from school as 'looking after them' and instead just says, “Serpents help their own,” and then turns to swing his backpack over his shoulders.

“Sweet Pea,” Andrews says, and the name rolls awkwardly off his tongue; Sweet Pea glances back at him, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about… all that shit I did.”

“Oh, you mean the time we caught you graffitiing our side of town right before you pulled a gun on us? And then called the sheriff on us when we were racing for our bar and Sunnyside?”

“I didn’t call the sheriff on _you_ guys, it was just to get the other guy arrested,” he defends.

“And you thought the sheriff would, what, ignore the rest of us?”

Andrews sighs sharply, like he’s heard this before—good, he thinks, at least Jones is trying to teach the guy something, “That was my bad,” he admits, grudgingly, “Like I said, I’m—sorry. I was going through it, and I was doing dumb shit instead of dealing with it.”

It’s not a great excuse, but it is an understandable one. Sweet Pea thinks about all the times he’s gone to fuck around at the Wyrm instead of talking to his brother about the fact that he thinks he likes boys just as much as he likes girls, instead of dealing with the idea of just how much that could fuck up their relationship, instead of acknowledging the fact that the shitty factory job he’s got has been a lot less “just for now” than it was supposed to be. It doesn’t quite compare to someone’s dad getting shot, but he gets it. Even if he doesn’t quite want to accept the guy’s apology just yet, he gets it.

So he sucks it up, and says, “Thanks,” and Andrews' face lights up quick enough that he adds an unimpressed “I guess,” just so he doesn’t get the wrong idea. He does stick his hand out, though, as some sort of maybe peace offering, “It’s cool to have someone on the team that doesn’t wish I wasn’t here.”

It comes out more honest than he meant it to, so he ends the handshake quickly and shoves his hand in his pocket instead. Andrews just gives him an annoyingly sympathetic look, and says, “The others’ll come around—you’re too good of a player for them to ignore it much longer.”

Sweet Pea isn’t immune to compliments—Jones mentioning how tall he is and that his muscles are pretty impressive is one of the reasons he learned to tolerate him so quickly—but he shrugs and says, “I fuckin’ hope so. It’s getting annoying.” A pause, whether Andrews hesitates a moment too long, “Anyway, Jones is gonna get pissy if I make him wait too long. See ya around.”

Something odd, maybe a little sad, crosses Andrews face at the mention of his bestie, but it’s gone just as quick as it came. “Tell him I said hi.”

“Sure,” Sweet Pea says, an echo of last time, and then he grabs his tennis shoes and heads out.

“Took you long enough,” Jones bitches as soon as Sweet Pea opens the driver’s door.

“Next time I’ll make you walk home,” Sweet Pea shoots back.

Jones flips him off without even glancing up from his phone. Sweet Pea swats at his hand, and starts the car. 

They win their first game of the season, and it feels great. They win their second game, and Mantle doesn’t have any hostile shit to throw at him— “good shot”, he says, and Sweet Pea isn’t sure if that makes him want to punch him a little more or a little less. He goes with a little less, ‘cause he’s in a good mood and Fangs said if they got two wins in a row Sweet Pea gets to pick all four movies they watch next movie night. Hate to say it, but one benefit of FP still being in prison means they can spend long nights in the trailer using the Jones’ shitty little TV. Jones complained about it a little bit the first few times—all “why’s it always gotta be over here, I know I’m not the only one with a TV”—until they elected to bring food with them. He was all fine and fuckin dandy about it after that.

They lose their third game, which is not on him. He has a math test, which he doesn’t do great on but he doesn’t fail, Toni makes him sit through a three hour movie on movie night, Andrews sits at their lunch table a few more times, and it’s less annoying than it should be, even though he still doesn’t seem to know how to behave like a normal person around all of them at once. 

Fangs texts him one night, tone anxious even through the phone, asking if he can call him to talk about something, and Sweet Pea knows what’s coming before he even answers the phone. When Fangs asks if he’s cool with it, with him and Keller’s kid, “even though it’s not, like, _official_ or anything,” Sweet Pea says “duh, I could never have a problem with you.” 

He hears Fangs laugh through the phone, so heavy with relief it makes something in his chest ache, “Yeah. But you kinda seem to have a problem with him.”

Sweet Pea exhales heavy, “Well, yeah—he’s the sheriff’s kid, y’know? It just feels kinda weird to hang around him like he’s not.”

Fangs hums, soft and understanding, ‘cause he always seems to get what he’s trying to say even when he doesn’t know how to say it, “I get it. You don’t have to be best friends with him—it’s not like I’d hang out one-on-one with Cheryl just ‘cause Toni likes her. He just…” 

“He what?”

Fangs laughs softly, “He thinks you’re gonna jump him, or something—apparently you glare at him a lot.”

“That’s just my face!” he says, even though he’s probably right—he doesn’t have the best, like, emotional self-control. “It’s not my fault if he assumes I’m gonna kick his ass.”

“I know,” Fangs says, and he sounds fond, almost, and it carries through the phone in a way that makes it heavy in Sweet Pea’s hand, “Just—try not to seem too mad when you look at him, okay? For me?”

He knows he doesn’t have to ask—Sweet Pea was already mentally preparing himself to stop thinking about being tossed into a holding cell whenever he looks at the guy—but he does, ‘cause Fangs is nice like that.

“Fine,” Sweet Pea says. “For you.”

They spend the rest of the night talking about things that aren’t related to the sheriff’s kid and how hard Fangs has caught feelings for him—mostly about how practice has been and how long it’s gonna be before Toni and that Blossom girl hurry up and admit they’re dating already and about the shitty “vintage” car Fangs wants to get on his eighteenth and how he’s gonna need to find a new engine, now, too—until Fangs says his battery’s about to die and that he’s gotta do a stupid lab report anyways.

Sweet Pea holds the phone up to his ear for a few more moments after they hang up, trying to commit to memory the way Fangs said goodnight—quick and fond and with the knowledge that he’s gonna see him first thing in the morning. 

Huh, he thinks, clicking his phone off and tossing it onto his bed, and wonders how much longer he and Fangs will have time like that to talk, what with Fangs having a boyfriend now. 

Fuckin’ dramatic, he tells himself a moment later. He’s been spending too much time with Jones and Cheryl. 

Student council elections sneak up on them, and Sweet Pea doesn’t realize they’re Right There until the principal announces that registrations are open for the next week, and that anyone who wants to run can fill out the paperwork in the front office.

Fangs makes eye contact with him across the aisle and quirks his eyebrows-- _you ready for this?_ Sweet Pea grins— _fuck yeah_ —and wonders who else is planning to run. He thinks he’s heard whispers of the Lodge girl Andrews is dating, and maybe Jones’ ex. The mayor’s daughter, too.

“Tough competition,” Toni says at lunch later, “But there’s no way they’re expecting us. We’re gonna shake shit up.”

Jones raises a french fry in a little one-man toast, “We love to see it.”

“You’re gonna go do the paperwork stuff after school, yeah?” Fangs asks.

“Yeah,” Sweet Pea says, “So we don’t forget to do it.”

Toni snorts, “You’re the one who’d forget.”

“Which is why we’re doing it now.”

She hums, relenting. “We’ve gotta figure out a design for our posters, too.”

“You gonna keep the ‘Pop would vote for me’ slogan?” Jones asks hopefully.

“Obviously,” Sweet Pea says.

“We’ll have to get, like, our ‘values’ and stuff in order, too,” Toni says, “Like, why we’re running, what we can offer.”

“Like a theme?” Fangs asks.

Toni tilts her head, “I guess so, yeah. Like, an appeal factor.”

“An attention grabber,” Jones adds.

Sweet Pea, personally, thinks they’re taking this a little too serious, “We’ve already got a theme,” he says, “it’s, like, what is that thing you like to say when you’re mad at rich people? Down with the—dumb French word.”

“The bourgeois?” Jones says.

“Yeah. That’s our theme.”

Fangs snorts, “Pop Tate would vote for me,” he says, voice pitched like he’s reading a poster, “also, eat the rich.”

Jones laughs; Toni does, too, even as she says, “We can’t print ‘eat the rich’ on all our posters.”

“Why not?” Sweet Pea asks, disappointed. “It’s quick ‘n to the point.”

“We might get disqualified, or whatever it is they do. They’d be looking for a reason to not let us run.”

Sweet Pea sighs, and Fangs pats him on the back, “I think it’d be a good idea,” he reassures him.

“Which is why I’m running as VP, and you’re not,” Toni says, firm and fond at once. 

Fangs huffs a laugh, “Yeah… yeah.”

“So we need your names, a slogan,” Jones lists off, “should probably toss in a ‘vote for us’ somewhere. Do we need any, like… pictures?”

They all take a moment to consider. Sweet Pea’s instinct is, of course, the serpent’s logo. Considering all the shit that went down about the jackets and uniforms, though, that probably wouldn’t work out well—even he knows that much.

“I don’t know,” Toni says, “We could ask Ricky, he’s good at art shit. But we probably don’t need one, if we space out all the words enough. It mostly just needs to look good.”

Fangs nods, “We’ve gotta keep up with the northside kids.”

“And they’ll definitely go all out,” Jones agrees. “I think it’ll be fun, though.”

Toni grins a little, “Yeah. Even if we don’t win, it’ll be cool to try. We never had anything like this at Southside High.”

“But we _are_ gonna win,” Sweet Pea reminds them, ‘cause there’s no point in going all out if they’re not in it to crush the competition.

“Obviously,” Toni says, “But it’ll still be fun.”

“Winning’s always fun,” Fangs agrees, and downs the rest of his little chocolate milk carton. Jones watches sadly—sometimes, when he’s not feeling it, Fangs will let Jones have it instead.

Sweet Pea rolls his eyes, and slides his carton across the table. He doesn’t love the brand they have here, anyway—that Shamrock shit always hits a little different. Jones lights up, subtly, and sends him a little smile. Which Sweet Pea shrugs off, and bites back his own smile at the way the dumbass sticks his pinky out when he lifts the carton to drink. Stupid. 

Fangs doesn’t bother; he makes a point to mimic it, actually, which makes Jones snort, choking his milk down.

“Stupid,” Toni says, echoing his thoughts, but she’s smiling. Something in Sweet Pea’s chest settles into place—he hadn’t even notice it was out of place until now. It’s nice, he decides, just… just them. Without anyone’s crush hanging around. They haven’t had lunch to themselves in a while. Does that make him a bad friend, he wonders, being all selfish with their time?

Fangs throws back the rest of his chocolate milk like he’s taking a shot, which makes Jones laugh. Toni rolls her eyes and says “amateur, _this_ is how you do it.” Jones gives a little clap as she demonstrates, and no, he decides, it’s not bad to take a bit of their time for this. 

Besides, he thinks, dropping back into the conversation to steal his carton back and show them how a seasoned professional throws back a shot of chocolate milk, it’s just a fuckin’ lunch period.

So they go to the front office to fill out the paperwork stuff, despite the looks the lady at the front desk gives them. She asks for his name three times, and, when he doesn’t change it, shakes her head in that confused way older people do and scribbles it down. When they announce the pairs that are running over the announcements later that week, the sheer reaction it gets out of people is enough to make him decide right then that this was the best decision he’s made in a long time. 

“You’re seriously running for president?” Ricky asks, catching him after class, sounding a little confused but also a little excited.

“Yeah, dude, you were there when I decided to do it.”

“I didn’t know you were being serious!” he laughs, “Holy shit, I never thought I’d see you giving a shit about student politics. This is great.” 

He was expecting to get the Southside kids’ votes, but the sheer amount of support he’s met with throughout the rest of the day kind of blows his mind. Toni seems to be in a similar state when lunch rolls around, seeming kinda dazed—but also happy—as she sits down across from him. 

“Maybe I’m speaking too soon,” Jones says, sliding onto the bench next to Toni, “But I think we might have this in the bag.”

“I didn’t know people gave _this_ much of a shit about school politics,” Sweet Pea says.

Toni shrugs, “It’s something new to a lot of them. And having some southside kids trying it makes it more fun.”

Jones glances at Sweet Pea, “Looks like Reggie’s the one running with Josie.”

Sweet Pea sighs; he’d been trying to block that part of the morning announcements out. “He just keeps showing up; it’s like he’s stalking me.”

Jones laughs. “Betty and Veronica are probably gonna be tough to beat, too.”

“Do we have a poster design yet?” Fangs asks. 

They all fall silent. Which is a no, obviously, but none of them want to admit they haven’t been thinking about it. 

“I don’t have practice today,” Sweet Pea offers.

“Should we ask Ricky about art shit, or do you think we can just, like, fuck around with photoshop for a while?” Jones asks.

Toni shrugs, “Ricky will be all dramatic about it—guy’s a perfectionist.”

“Photoshop it is, then.”

None of them actually have photoshop, so they fuck around on a powerpoint slide for a while, ‘cause Julian, one of the other younger serpents, gets it for free ‘cause he’s a student at the community college outside of town, and he lets them use his account once they tell him it’s for actual important shit and not a book report or something.

It’s not, like, a real presidential campaign worthy poster, but it looks fine, once Toni had taken over and reeled back the rest of their impulses to make it as funny as possible. Jones makes a lot of suggestions about what things look more ‘professional’ than others, ‘cause apparently having a friend whose dad is running for mayor makes him an expert on political campaigns all of the sudden.

They go to the public library near Sunnyside to print off their campaign posters, but the printers there run out of ink pretty fast, so they end up having to use the printers at the school library the next day--which cost money to use? Like, a quarter a pop for black and white and a whole forty for color. 

“Don’t we go here?” Sweet Pea asks, vaguely disgusted, “Why the hell do we have to pay to use the printers?”

Jones shrugs, “Life is a scam, dude.”

They were able to get a solid half of ‘em printed at the library near Sunnyside, so it’s not as awful as it could be. There’s no fucking way they’re gonna waste money on pins, though, no matter how cheap it says they are online—hello, shipping? It’s not an actual real life presidential campaign—the levels these people go to.

“If I had the extra cash to make pins for this shit,” Sweet Pea says, “Why would I spend it on actually making pins. That’s so dumb. Just hang a poster and go.”

“I don’t know,” Fangs says, holding up his phone, “It says you can customize them for, like, a cent a piece.”

“Shipping,” Sweet Pea says, for like the third time. “Shipping to a small ass town probably costs extra. It’s not like we’ve got any UPS stores around here.”

“Plus.” Toni says, “It was enough trouble coming up with the poster design. We don’t need pins to win.”

“Yeah,” Jones says, “I don’t think it matters either way.”

Fangs sighs, “I just think they’d be fun. Andrews’ dad is using them for his campaign.”

“One more reason not to use them!” Sweet Pea says.

“I think that’s a point in the pins’ favor, actually,” Jones says.

“You just said it doesn’t matter.”

“Yeah, but if Mister A is doing something, it’s probably a good idea.”

“Okay, but he’s actually running for mayor,” Toni counters, “It makes sense for him.”

“They’re only a cent a piece,” Fangs reminds them, showing them his phone screen again, “We could get a hundred of them for one dollar. One dollar, guys.”

“Tax,” Sweet Pea says, but he feels himself starting to give; it’s not his fault Fangs is so good at that sad puppy dog eyes thing, and he does have a point—the one cent a pop thing, definitely nothing to do with Andrews’ dad’s mayoral campaign decisions. “And shipping.”

“People might think we’re slackin’ if we don’t have pins like the rest of ‘em,” Fangs says, eyes wide and pleading. “Plus, it’d be super cool to have other people, like, carrying your names around on their backpacks and shit.”

Sweet Pea can’t be the one to say no to him; which brings him to their final decision maker: “What d’you think, Toni?”

Toni knows exactly what he’s doing, and frowns at him. “It’s not a bad idea,” she pauses to think, “But if we can’t decide on a fuckin’ design for it by tonight then there’s no point in bothering. Also, you gotta cover shipping,” she tells Fangs, who lights up.

“Yeah, yeah, no problem—it doesn’t have to be anything, like, intricate.”

Jones slams his hand down on the table loud enough that all three of them jump, “Eat the rich,” he says, “It’s small enough to fit on a pin.”

“Yes,” Sweet Pea says, at the same moment that Toni says, “No.”

“Why not?” Jones asks. “It’d be so funny!”

“It’d also ruin our chance of getting any northside votes,” Toni points out, but she does sound disappointed about it. “We’ve been through this.”

Jones sighs, leaning back in his chair. “I want an ‘eat the rich’ pin, though,” he mumbles.

“Me too,” says Sweet Pea, “I could put it on my gym bag.”

“You have to.”

“We could all get matching ones,” Fangs says, “that’s four cents. Four!” 

“Okay, we can get matching ‘eat the rich’ pins,” Toni says, “But we still need a design for the campaign.”

“I still think ‘eat the rich’ would be funny,” Jones says.

Toni shakes her head; they lapse into a silence. A locker slams somewhere. 

Sweet Pea, swallowing down his pride, opens his mouth and asks, “What… is Andrews’ dad doing? Like, just as an example.”

It looks like Jones wants to say something smart ass-y about it, but Toni gives him a look, so he just shrugs and says, “I mean, I’m pretty sure they just—wait, I think I have one.” he rummages through his backpack for a minute, and then pulls it out—‘Fred Andrews for mayor’ is all it says. Standard red white n’ blue election colors. It’s pretty big, too.

“It’s pretty big,” Sweet Pea observes; Jones shrugs, and Sweet Pea watches him prick himself on the thumb pinning it to his backpack strap. 

“Can’t exactly fit two full names on one little pin,” Toni says.

“We could just do your initials or something,” Fangs says, “SP and T.”

“It rhymes,” Jones says.

“No American flag colors,” Toni says.

“Of course not,” Fangs agrees, “We could do green.”

“That’s predictable, though,” Jones says.

“There’s green in our campaign posters,” Sweet Pea defends.

“Yeah, but it’s not the only color.”

“What about red?” Toni offers.

“Doesn’t the color red make people anxious or something? Or mad? Like, scientifically?”

“That explains a lot about that Blossom chick,” Sweet Pea says, and Toni swats him in the shoulder. “It’s also an American flag color,” he continues.

“Does the color really matter that much?” she asks, throwing her hands up in exasperation.

Jones shrugs, “It’s your call. I’m just here for moral support.”

Toni rubs at her temples, and Sweet Pea reaches over to pat her shoulder in reassurance. “You know what?” she says, “Doesn’t matter. I like the initials idea,” she tells Fangs, “Choose whatever color you think’ll look the best. We’ll split the cost.”

“How many should I order?”

“How many people go here?” Sweet Pea asks.

“We are not buying a thousand pins,” Toni says.

“Maybe, like, a hundred or so?” Jones says. “So we don’t have a million left over.” 

“That’s literally only a dollar,” Fangs says. 

“I bet tax and shipping add another twenty,” says Sweet Pea. Fangs sticks his tongue out and clicks on the check out cart. 

The tax and shipping add another fifteen dollars, so Sweet Pea was close. Imagine if they had bought a thousand of them. 

They come surprisingly fast—Fangs admits to him, when Toni isn’t paying attention, that he did shamefully pay extra for priority shipping—and they actually turn out pretty good. 

They spread them around, handing them out to the serpents and the other southside kids, and Fangs was right: it is pretty cool to see people wearing their names—initials, technically—on their backpacks. It makes it all feel more important, even if it’s a little ridiculous. The lengths these people go to—the lengths he is now going to. God, this place is infecting him. 

Ricky gushes about how nice their campaign posters look, so he supposes they did fine on both fronts. Look at that. 

Mantle, surprisingly, does not make a huge deal out of it at practice like Sweet Pea kinda thought he would. Which is fine with him—he’s there to run around and throw a ball through a hoop, not fight about student fuckin’ politics. 

Andrews catches him on the way down the stairs after practice one day, calls his name in that unsure way he uses it—like he doesn’t have a best friend who’s name is literally Jughead. 

“Yeah?” Sweet Pea asks, mostly to get it over with more quickly. He and Fangs have a trip to the quarry to throw rocks in the water planned in a bit, and he’d rather not be late ‘cause he was having another painfully drawn out one-on-one conversation with Andrews.

Andrews only takes a moment or two to gather his courage this time, rather than leave him in a solid thirty seconds of silence. “I was wondering if I could, uh, get one of your pins? Like for your campaign?”

Sweet Pea blinks at him, almost actually speechless for the first time in a long time. “What?”

“One of your campaign pins.”

“Why d’you want one of those? They’re in limited stock, y’know.”

“I know,” Andrews says, and lifts his chin a tiny bit, “They’re to show… support and stuff, right?”

Sweet Pea crosses his arms, “And what, _you_ support us?”

“Well, yeah. You represent my best friend and his values—of course I support you.”

Sweet Pea shrugs, “You’re still gonna vote for your football buddy.” 

“I don’t know who I’m gonna vote for, yet,” Andrews says, a tad defensive—hit the mark, then. 

“So why should I waste one on you if you ‘don’t know’ yet? We had to pay real money to ship ‘em all the way here.”

“I just—I do support you. I want you and—and Jug—to get that.” 

He does sound almost amazingly sincere. Sweet Pea frowns at him for a few moments. To Andrews’ credit, he doesn’t look away. 

Sweet Pea rolls his eyes, “Fine,” he says, reaching into the front pocket of his backpack where he keeps a few of them. 

Andrews doesn’t fumble with it when Sweet Pea tosses it to him—damn football reflexes. 

“If you lose it you’re not getting another one.”

Andrews smiles—maybe the first real one he’s seen thrown his way. He inspects it for a moment, and glances back up, “Cool. Thanks, dude.”

Sweet Pea watches with a detached sort of surprise as he turns his backpack to clip it onto the front near the rest of them. 

“Why didn’t you just ask your boyfriend for it?” he asks, huffing a laugh at the way he goes red for a moment. 

“Jughead’s not my boyfriend,” he defends on reflex, just like Jones always does, “I just… I don’t know, it would feel kinda weird. I don’t want him to think I’m just doing this as a favor or something, or to make him forgive me faster, y’know?”

“What? He forgives you for everything, literally all the time.” When Andrews just blinks at him, Sweet Pea scoffs, “Remember that time you made that weird vigilante video talking shit about the south side? Jones tried to save your ass as soon as he heard about it. He forgave you right after his girlfriend sent you to dump him. You don’t have to do shit to make him forgive you.”

Archie takes a few moments to draw his shoulders up defensively, “But I’m not—I just said I don’t want him to think that’s what I’m doing. That’s why I didn’t ask him,” a pause, “And I just… wanted to let you know that I supported you. Like, even off the court.” 

Sweet Pea can almost get why Jones is so easy to forgive his ass. He just sounds so damn sincere. He’s either great at acting, or he genuinely feels like this about a fuckin’ pin. Sweet Pea can’t decide which one would be worse. 

He exhales hard; something about this guy exhausts him. He’s so earnest. 

“Whatever,” he says, “Just—take it and stop looking at me like that.” 

Andreas face scrunches his nose up, but says, “Uh, okay? See you tomorrow.”

“Sure.”

That was bizarre, he thinks, pulling the truck door shut behind him, and pushes the exchange to the back of his mind to think about how many times he’s gonna try to make his rocks skip this time. He’s been getting pretty fucking good at it. Can Keller skip rocks like that? He fuckin’ doubts it. 

It’s all fun and games until someone mentions a debate. Like, sitting on a stage with a microphone and answering questions. What the fuck? He’s pretty sure that’s not what he signed up for. 

They’re meeting at Jones’ later to go over some campaign shit; Fangs can’t make it—”Sorry, Sweets”, he had said, eyes wide and apologetic, “I told Kevin I’d go to the movies with him later; I’ll be there next time for sure,”—so he slams the door open to Jones and Toni sitting in the living room. They both jump when the door hits the wall, and Jones makes an offended noise.

“Don’t slam my shit,” he says.

Sweet Pea ignores him. “We have debates and shit?” he asks, “Seriously?”

“How exactly did you think this was gonna work?” Toni asks, recovering quick as ever. 

“I thought it was just, you say you wanna be president and then people vote on it.”

“And you’ve been alive for how many presidential elections?”

“This is _student council_ , Toni. It’s not an actual, real ass campaign.”

“Some of this kids have, like, CEOs and politicians as parents,” Jones says from where he’s draped across the couch, “and some of ‘em will probably be CEOs and politicians themselves. They take this shit very seriously.”

“You coulda warned me.”

“You were so excited about it—and you’re much nicer when you’re in a good mood.”

“I’m gonna be shit at these things,” he says, crossing his arms slumping back against the counter, “I… kinda have a temper sometimes, y’know?”

Jones snorts, “Kinda.”

Before Sweet Pea can get mad about that, too, Toni says, “That’s why we practice. We’re not gonna wing it--we’d lose, like, immediately.”

“They’re gonna wanna make you lose your cool,” Jones adds, “The whole point of these things is to, like, prove whether or not you know what you’re talking about.”

“Which we do,” Toni says. “And if you blank, or don’t know how to answer, give the mic to me.”

“Maybe have her hold the mic, actually,” Jones says. 

“Yeah,” Sweet Pea says, “I think you should hold the mic.”

Toni smiles, “I’ll hold the mic,” she amends, “And if you wanna answer the question, you can take it.”

“Okay,” Sweet Pea says, feeling more confident about it already, mostly just knowing that Toni’s got them covered like she always does, “I can do that.”

Toni’s eyes soften a little, with that fondness reserved for only a few people, “Let’s start with the easier ones, yeah? Like, general reasons why we’re running, what we think we can offer the school, that kinda thing.”

“We’re running because I wanna see the looks on all the rich kids’ faces if we win.”

“Probably shouldn’t say that.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sweet Pea sighs, “It’d be funny, though.”

“It would be funny,” Jones agrees, which almost makes up for the lack of Fangs’ input. Maybe he’ll text him later, to see what he thinks of whatever they come up with.

“Try again,” Toni says, “Think about what you’re gonna say before you say it.”

Sweet Pea scoffs, “I do that.”

“Prove it,” Jones says, and Sweet Pea changes his mind—he definitely does not make up for Fangs’ lack of input. 

“Why are we running for student council?” Toni asks, ignoring both of them.

Sweet Pea considers—which he does regularly, actually, “We’re running because there’s a whole new group of kids at the school who don’t, like, have an input on things. And so we end up with stupid shit like the uniforms, ‘cause there’s no one taking the southside kids opinions into consideration. Something’s gotta be done about that.”

“Maybe leave out the swear,” Jones says, sounding mildly impressed.

Toni, on the other hand, looks pleased. He listens when people talk. “See?” she says, “We’ve got this shit in the bag.”

“Next question,” Jones says, “What’re you gonna do about it?”

Sweet Pea pretends to hand the mic to Toni, who smiles and pretends to take it; she crosses her legs and clears her throat, and Sweet Pea prepares to take some mental notes. 

They spend a lot of time working on campaign shit—the dramatic ass debate goes surprisingly well—and they still all eat lunch together. Other than that, though, Toni has a big gay crush on the Blossom chick who told them all delinquents to their faces on their first day and comes to watch practice with Toni and seems to make her happy. She obviously has a big gay crush back, so it’s whatever; he sees more of her by default, since she sees more of Toni.

She’s still kind of a bitch, but not as bad when she’s around Toni. She’s like a softer, more fragile bitch who looks all proud of herself when she makes Toni laugh, like she’s the best person in the world just for that. Which is stupid, because they make Toni laugh infinitely more times than Blossom ever does, but whatever. Toni’s happy, so he’ll let her have this one. Hell, Blossom even asks Sweet Pea to hold her earrings and heels one day while she goes and yells at Lodge about whatever they’re fighting about now--something about the election, and how Lodge doesn’t have a shot in hell and also something about daddy issues. She doesn’t deck her like he told her to (nothing against Lodge—he just has an inherent distrust of rich people from New York and he’s also the one campaigning with Toni), but it comes close. 

He still feels off and uncomfortable hanging around the sheriff’s kid, though no matter how hard he’s been trying not to. Which might not be fair, but he thinks Fangs and Keller should probably feel it, too, considering how many times the guy’s dad has jerked them around or kept them in holding cells overnight for no fucking reason. He’s sure the kid’s talked shit about them before, too. He wonders if he’s ever talked shit about Fangs behind his back.

Jones says _I don’t think Kevin’s that kinda guy,_ which doesn’t actually reassure him very much, but Fangs says it, too—which is only slightly better, because Fangs is obviously biased in his favor, what them being “together but not official”—and what’s with that, he thinks sometimes, is Keller too embarrassed to make it “official? But thinking about the two of them in any capacity always makes something in his stomach twist uncomfortably, so he tries not to think about it very much.

For lack of anyone else to spend his free time with, since everyone else is suddenly over the moon for some northsider, he’s been spending an inadvertently large amount of time with Jones. Who is also probably still over the moon for a northsider or two, but at least he isn’t trailing after them anymore. Sweet Pea’s pretty sure he and Andrews have been trying to fix whatever it is they have going on—Jones texts him a _lot_ —but Andrews has some sort of on again off again relationship with the Lodge girl that Cheryl almost fought in the middle of a school hallway, so he probably has enough to deal with.

It’s… well, it isn’t actually that horrible. Once you get past the pretentious writer thing, the dude’s actually pretty funny when he wants to be. He’s been a lot of help with the campaign shit, too, and at this point they’ve got an after school routine going pretty strong. 

When Sweet Pea just needs somewhere to chill without having to deal with Fangs making heart eyes at the sheriff’s kid all day or Toni talking about the Blossom girl like she doesn’t have a perpetual stick up her ass, Jughead—somehow he’s stopped only calling him Jones in his head—lets him sit in the editor’s room or whatever the hell he calls it after school when Sweet Pea doesn’t have practice, listening to the sound of Jughead’s fingers tapping away at his keyboard with a vengeance. 

It’s peaceful, almost, which Sweet Pea could use more of with all the shit he has going on at once. One day, after he’s scrolled through his phone long enough to wind down, Sweet Pea takes the opportunity to break their routine. He’s always been the type of person to break routine, for better or worse.

“What’re you writing, anyway?” he asks.

Jughead jumps a bit at the sound, fingers hitting a few random keys when his hands jerk. Sweet Pea laughs; Jones shoots him a dirty look, but still says, “Uh, an article for the paper?” There’s a silent _duh_ tacked on at the end.

“No shit. An article about what?”

Jones blinks, raises his eyebrows like asking about the paper is the most surprising thing Sweet Pea could do right now. Which grates on him the wrong way a little bit, ‘cause he’s stressed and no one can say that Sweet Pea doesn’t care about his friends, no matter how annoying they are. And all the shit that’s gone down between the first time he’d laid eyes on him and right now means Jones qualifies as a friend, obviously, and he thought Jones knew that by now. He drives him home almost every day, for fuck’s sake.

He’s self aware enough to know that he’s blowing something small out of proportion, but not really chilled out enough to care. He’s got a lot going on, and all his friends are fucking around with Northsiders and Jones is there, and he has long fingers and stupid hair and Sweet Pea kind of hates that he’s been noticing these things—he’s not sure how to feel about it, and not sure how he _should_ feel about it, and whether it’s a good or bad thing _to_ feel something about it. 

“Hello?” he snaps, because he’s tired of Jughead being surprised that he gives a shit.

Jughead’s surprise morphs into that vaguely annoyed look he sometimes wears around Mantle or some of the other annoying rich people, and Sweet Pea is very much not on Mantle's level of annoying.

“It’s about the election, actually,” Jones relents, “Betty asked me to do a sort of expose on everyone that’s running—president, VP, treasurer, all that. It’s kinda hard to stay unbiased, though,” his lips quirk a little. 

“Then don’t,” Sweet Pea says, “Cooper’s running, too, right?” Jughead nods, “And she knows you’re backing me ‘n Toni. I think it’d be a better article if you throw in just a little bit of slander. Like as a treat.”

Jughead snorts, shaking his head a little. “I really do wanna talk about Reggie’s history of bullying. Or maybe the time he threw a party and tried to jump off his roof into his big ass pool.”

“Oh my god,” Sweet Pea says, “Like that story FP used to tell.”

Jughead’s face lights up in recognition, “The one about Mister A getting drunk at that party and trying to jump off the roof.”

Sweet Pea nods, snapping his fingers, “Yeah, that one. Jesus, he told that one a lot. He made it sound a lot more romantic that it probably was--how is dragging your wasted friend through a window _any_ sort of fun?”

Jughead lets out an incredulous laugh, “He really does tell those stories to everyone. You heard the one about the time they gave themselves tattoos?”

“Holy shit, no. Do they match? Did they get matching tattoos? He gasps, “Did they get each other’s names or something?”‘ Jughead goes suspiciously silent, “Jones. Did your dad give himself a tattoo of his high school boyfriend’s name.”

Jughead presses the backs of his knuckles against his mouth, “No. They did get each other’s initials, though.”

Sweet Pea slaps the desk, “No fucking way. Did they get ‘em removed?”

“My dad didn’t. I dunno about Mister A, though. I’m not exactly gonna ask him about it.”

Sweet Pea hums. “If I ever see him… I think I’m gonna ask.”

Jughead makes a scandalized noise, “Don’t.”

“I wanna know!”

“Do not ask Archie’s dad if he still has my father’s initials tattooed on his hip.”

“Does FP know if he still has it?”

“Don’t ask my dad about it either!” Jones reaches for a book and braces it like a weapon. 

Sweet Pea doesn’t doubt that he’d actually hit him with it, so he puts his hands up in surrender. “Okay, fine,” a pause, “Maybe I’ll ask Andrews instead.”

Jughead leans forward to hit him with the book. Sweet Pea dodges and stands to back up, so Jughead jumps out of his chair, too. They dick around for a bit, Jughead actually landing a few solid wacks, before Sweet Pea gets tired of being hit with a book and grabs at his wrist to get him to fucking drop it. It’s kinda funny that Jones thinks he can get a leg up on Sweet Pea even though he comes up to his chain at the highest; he ends up crowding Jones against the far wall, near the window, the book sprawled open on the ground.

Sweet Pea stops short—Jones stops laughing with him, almost immediately—because he realizes all at once that he’s close enough to see the flecks of gold in Jones’ eyes, and the moles on his neck and he can feel the weight of his wrist under his hand. His fingers flex at the realization, and Jones goes still under them. His hair is falling out from under his hat more than usual, and Sweet Pea thinks he can feel him holding his breath.

The light is low, because the curtains are half-drawn. There’s no one around, and Jones is just looking up at him like he’s waiting for something to happen, and there’s this charged feeling in the air, or maybe it’s under his skin, all pent up and buzzing, and so Sweet Pea does the most obvious thing to do in this situation: he kisses him.

Jughead doesn’t react at first, just makes this high, surprised noise. Sweet Pea gets a hand in his hair, sliding under that stupid hat, and Jughead’s hands shoot up to his shoulders, gripping tight. He tries to jerk back, maybe, but Sweet Pea doesn’t let him, pushes closer, like if he can just get close enough everything will stop being so confusing.

Eventually, he has to pull back to breathe. He feels his heart racing, can feel Jughead panting against him. His eyes are blown wide and surprised, maybe a little confused. Sweet Pea is also a little confused, himself. They both stand there, for a moment or two, until Jughead’s eyes flick briefly down to Sweet Pea’s lips, which Sweet Pea takes as his go-ahead, and leans back down to drive the point home. Jughead doesn’t freeze again, but he does tense up a little. He also, slowly, moves to kiss back. Sweet Pea feels his hand rest, a little shaky, against his neck, right over his tattoo. 

Sweet Pea’s hands slide down to grip his hips, and Jughead pulls back. His head thumps lightly against the wall behind him, and he puts his hands on Sweet Pea’s hand to stop them where they are.

“Listen,” he says, voice all breathy in a way that makes Sweet Pea’s heart do this weird flutter, “this is—flattering, and all, but… I don’t want to be the person you use to, like, figure yourself out.”

Sweet Pea blinks, because that stings a little, “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’re not really that into me,” and he sounds more bemused than upset.

“What, are you a fuckin’ mind reader?,” he snaps, “You don’t know what I’m into.”

“I know you don’t stare at me like I’m the fuckin’ sun, and I know I don’t have a razor sharp jawline.”

“So what?” Sweet Pea shoots back, defensive and kind of pissed off because this isn’t how it’s supposed to go, “I thought your Northside boyfriend was dating that rich girl.”

“Archie’s not my boyfriend,” he says, a reflex, “And he is. Dating Veronica.”

“Then what’s the problem? You were obviously into it.”

“I’m not the one you wanna kiss,” he says, even as he flushes a little.

“Yeah, you are,” Sweet Pea insists; was that not fucking clear enough?

“Okay, maybe I am,” Jughead relents, “But I’m not the one you wanna, like, date. There’s a big difference. I’m not super into being a tool for your bi-curious exploration.”

“I’m not—I mean, I’m not _exploring.”_

“I know,” Jughead admits, “Which would kinda make it worse. Like, I don’t wanna be your Plan B.”

“I don’t,” Sweet Pea starts, suddenly floundering, “Hold up, no, I didn’t mean…” 

“It’s cool, Sweets, it’s fine,” Jughead says, squeezing his arms where he’s still gripping them to help him calm down. Or to keep him focused, at least. Sweet Pea appreciates the effort, stilted as it is.

“For real?” he asks, like he isn’t kind of being turned down right now. He’s a little upset about it, if he’s being honest, because he does like watching Jughead’s hands on the keyboard and how long his eyelashes are and how he still got up after Sweet Pea nearly broke his nose. It’s not like he planned to kiss him right _now_.

“Yeah,” Jughead says, giving a small but surprisingly reassuring smile. “For real.”

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Sweet Pea starts with a sudden rush of panic.

“I won’t,” Jughead interrupts, frowning, “that’s such a shitty thing to do. I’m only gonna slander Reggie a little.”

Sweet Pea huffs a weak laugh, “Thanks,” he says; opens his mouth to maybe say sorry for whatever it is that just happened; stops himself, “Thanks.”

“Sure.”

A long pause. Someone slams a locker in the hallway hard enough to echo.

“Hey, uh,” Sweet Pea wets his lips, and he doesn’t wanna sound like an asshole but he really wants to know, for future reference—even though there’s no way he could be anything but great at it, “Am I a good kisser?”

Jughead snorts, which isn’t a good sign, “I mean, I guess? I’m not super well-versed in the art.”

“That’s okay,” Sweet Pea says, slowly trying to slip back into their usual dynamic to somehow make this less weird, “I’m sure you’ll get some eventually.”

“I’m not the one who just asked if I’m a good kisser,” Jughead shoots back, not missing a beat, and goes to collect his shit. Sweet Pea stands there and watches him do it for a few minutes.

“Jones,” he says, just as he’s slipping his laptop into his backpack, “Jughead. I’m sorry, for real. You don’t deserve to be a Plan B, or whatever.”

“Thanks,” Jughead says, and he sounds like he means it. There’s a pause. “Do you… could you still give me a ride home?”

Sweet Pea feels the tension in his shoulders melt away all at once. “Sure,” he says, “But only if you help pay for gas next time.”

Jughead rolls his eyes half-heartedly. “Fine,” he says, “Where are the keys for this place? Betty wanted us to lock up.”

They find the keys and lock up and Sweet Pea starts the truck and pulls out of the parking lot, like they do all the time. Even though he thought they cleared the air, the car ride is still tense. He’s not sure if it’s him or Jones that’s making it all tense—maybe both of them.

Sweet Pea turns on the radio, just to fill the air with something other than fucking tension.

Jones hums along lightly to one of the songs, almost subconsciously. Sweet Pea doesn’t know if he’s ever heard him do that before. It makes something fond settle in his chest; which is not a good sign, probably. 

They pull up to Jones’ trailer. Sweet Pea puts the truck in park. Jones unbuckles and goes to open the door, and then stops, and doesn’t open the door. They both sit there for a minute, for some reason. Sweet Pea doesn’t _do_ tense or nervous, but as the seconds pass, he thinks, for the first time, that he might get it.

“Listen,” Jones says, making Sweet Pea jump—payback for earlier, some detached part of him thinks. “I’m… not a Plan B.”

Now he’s just confused, “I know.” he says, instead of getting frustrated. 

“Neither are you,” Jones says, finally glancing over at him.

Sweet Pea blinks, “I… know? Thanks?” 

Jones nods, like he’s decided something. “Okay. Don’t… get mad, Mister ‘I kinda have a temper sometimes’.” 

Sweet Pea doesn’t even have time to be mad about the nickname before Jughead has braced his hand on the arm rest between them and leaned forwards. He gets the idea pretty quick—way quicker than Jughead did, so he’s not even really getting back at him, if that’s what he’s trying to do. He’s kinda confused, because he was pretty sure Jughead was literally turning him down about twenty minutes ago, but, surprisingly, he’s not actually _mad._ Jughead seems to be much more with the program than he was before, reaching up to rest his hand right along Sweet Pea’s jaw, and the feeling makes him shiver, makes his hand jerk up from the steering wheel and up to the curve of Jughead’s neck. Jughead’s hand is still a little shaky as Sweet Pea teases the hair on the back of his neck. He doesn’t know what that means, but he does know his heart is kinda doing the same thing. 

And they do still have to breathe.

“What the hell was that?” Sweet Pea asks when Jughead pulls back.

Jughead just looks at him for a moment, tilts his head like he’s thinking. “I… don’t really know. I kinda just wanted to do it.”

“I thought you didn’t wanna be a tool for my ‘bi-curious exploration’,” Sweet Pea says, mimicking the way he said it.

“I thought you said you weren’t exploring,” he answers.

“I’m not,” Sweet Pea says.

“Okay.” a pause, “I think… I wanna kiss you again.” He says it with such an odd confidence that Sweet Pea doesn’t know how to respond for a minute. “If that’s okay.”

“Yeah,” he says, “That’s… cool with me.”

“Okay,” Jughead says, “Cool,” and then pulls back to grab his backpack.

At this point Sweet Pea’s just getting mixed signals. “Hello? I thought you just said you wanna kiss me again.”

Jughead sends him his patented little smug ass smile, “I didn’t say I wanna do it right now.”

It should probably annoy him, but it just makes Sweet Pea bark a laugh. “Okay, asshole. Bye.” 

“Bye,” Jughead says, pushing the door open and jumping down. “For the record, I do think you’re a pretty good kisser.”

He swings the door shut before Sweet Pea can say _I fucking knew it,_ and he watches him stomp up the steps to the trailer and pull the door shut behind him.

He sits there for a minute, just to let things sink in a little. He made out with Jughead Jones—the asshole who makes pretentious references and spends his time and writing and coaching him through his Campaign Values and having staring contests with his best friend—in the school newspaper's office, and then again, just a little bit, in his truck just now. What the fuck. 

Okay.

Stranger shit has happened, he thinks, putting the truck in reverse.

He’s not quite sure what it all, like, meant. But whatever. He’ll get to do it again, apparently, because Jones thinks he’s _great_ at it, and that thought alone is enough to have him humming along to the radio all the way home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i think they can kiss a little....like as a treat. also hungry heart by bruce springsteen was playing on the radio in the last scene i wld have linked it but ig ao3's being home of phobic today. (also worth noting that i did not have student council at my school im simply going off what the show gave me)
> 
> thank you for reading! comments are always appreciated


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Thursday before (student council) election day, Reggie Mantle invites him to a party.
> 
> Well, he invites the team to a party, “after the game Saturday, to celebrate our kickass winning streak,” and Sweet Pea is on the team, so Mantle tells him that he can come, “y’know, if you want—don’t feel obligated,” which pretty much seals the deal for him—if Mantle doesn’t actually want him to come, then of course he’s gonna show up. Just for fun. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listened to townie by mitski on repeat and also a lot of the strokes while writing the last half of this chapter and thats why it's Like This

It doesn't change things as much as Sweet Pea expected it to—the kiss thing, obviously. Jones doesn’t even mention it the next day, just quirks his eyebrows at him a little when he climbs into the backseat next to Toni and asks him if the team is ready for the game on Saturday or if they’re “gonna lose spectacularly”. Sweet Pea says they’re gonna fucking crush it, actually, and Jones says if you lose, I’m gonna laugh.

He doesn’t really mention it the few moments they’re alone, either, which… is a little annoying, but also not really. It’s not like Sweet Pea wanted them to be, like, a thing. 

They’re not a _thing_ —not like Toni and Cheryl are a thing, or Fangs and Keller are a thing, or Andrews and Lodge are occasionally a thing—but _it_ sort of becomes a thing: messing around in the back of the newspaper office or the backseat of Sweet Pea’s truck or in the locker room after practice, once the rest of the guys have left. Sweet Pea not sure exactly what it means, or what it should mean, but it’s nice, and it’s fun and it feels good; it’s not as confusing as the complicated swirl of emotions he has in his chest whenever he thinks about Fangs smiling under the neon lights or walking in on him and Keller that one time. He knows what to expect and what is expected of him. He doesn’t know if that’s weird or not, but whatever—it works.

Elections are two weeks away—like, the day that people vote on it and they see if all the time they spent walking through debate answers and all the quarters they spent printing off their campaign posters were worth it—and there’s a game on Saturday. Is actually being student council president gonna be as much work as running for it?

“Is actually being president gonna be as much work as all this campaigning shit was?” he asks, pulling his clean T-shirt over his head. 

Jones shrugs, arms folded across his chest as he leans against the locker opposite him. “Do I look like I’ve ever been student council president?”

Fair.

Sweet Pea hums, “At least we won’t have to keep on wasting money on the printers.”

Jones gives him an odd little smile, “You sound real sure of yourself.”

“You’re the one who said we had it in the bag.”

“Yeah, on day one.”

Sweet Pea snorts, dropping his backpack on the ground to bracket Jones against the lockers—he eats that shit up, most of the time. “Real talk,” he says, even as Jones tilts his head back to look him in the eye, “How big of a chance do we have? Are we gonna have to transfer schools again?”

“Like out of shame?”

“Yeah.”

Jones huffs a laugh, “I think we got a chance.”

“But are we gonna win, is what I’m asking.”

“Honestly, I don’t know. Hate to say it, but Reggie and Josie got a lot goin’ for them. And Betty and Veronica aren’t doing so bad, either. We do have most of the southside kids, though.”

“I know I’m failing math, but if we have, like, all the southside kids, and the southside kids are half the school… then the northside kids’ll be split between the other two. Won’t that give us the win, easy?”

Jones tilts his head to the side to consider, “I dunno if we’re, like, actually half. I’m pretty sure Southside High was smaller than Riverdale High.”

“Northside kids’ll still be split up, though.”

Jones quirks a wry smile, “There might be a few class traitors in our midst. And also some who just… don’t really give a shit either way.”

“If they don’t give a shit, how hard is it to check our box on a piece of paper?” 

Jones snorts, “You wanna talk every single Ghoulie into voting for you?”

Sweet Pea makes a face. “Hell no—I’d make you do it.”

“Why _me_?”

“You’re better at, like, talking at people ‘til they give up and do what you want.”

Jones goes to shove him in the shoulder, but Sweet Pea catches his wrist before he can make contact. 

“You’d literally have to pay me to waste that much time. I’ve already seen like three of ‘em in the bathroom with that pixie stick shit.” 

Sweet Pea shrugs, “Sorry, I used my last quarter on the printer last week.”

Jones lets him press his wrist up against the locker, rolling his eyes, “I’m not gonna ask you to ‘pay me with something else,’ asshole, this isn’t a porno. Get a job.” 

“You’re so annoying,” Sweet Pea grins, “don’t you watch movies?” and ducks down to—

The door swings open, loud; they barely have time to look up before Archie Andrews is stopping himself mid-stomp with a gasp. He blinks at them, eyes wide.

They’re all silent and still for a long moment, Andrews’ eyes flicking back and forth between the two of them. Sweet Pea takes another second to remember to drop Jones’ wrist and stand up straight. Andrews seems to come back into himself at the sudden movement, and actually flushes.

“Sorry,” he says, “I didn’t—well, I just forgot my…” 

“Your jacket’s on the bleachers in the gym, Arch,” Jones says, somehow managing to sound calm and absolutely mortified at the same time. 

“Oh,” Andrews flushes impossibly darker, “Uh, thanks. I’ll just…” and with that, he turns on his heel and leaves the room just as quickly as he entered. Sweet Pea watches the doors swing for a few seconds until they slow to a stop. When he looks back at Jones, the poor fucker actually has his hands pressed against his face in embarrassment.

“Well,” Sweet Pea says, “At least it wasn’t Mantle.”

It makes Jones laugh, which is a good sign, and he stops wallowing long enough to reach up and swat him in the shoulder. 

“Shit,” he says, rubbing at his eyes, “We were doing so good, too.”

“What, you and Andrews?”

Jones lets out a long breath and a short, “Mm,” in lieu of answering.

“Is he a homophobe or something?”

Jones huffs a laugh, shaking his head, “ _No_ , god, he’s just… weird about shit sometimes. I give him three days at least before he can, like, look me in the eye again. Ugh.” 

Sweet Pea snorts, “That’s more embarrassing for him than it is for you. Is he repressed?”

Jones gives him that classic look that says _like you can talk._ Which, yeah, but at least Sweet Pea’s a little more self-aware of it at this point. Still, Jones sighs and says, “Probably. But, y’know, that’s how it goes.”

His tone doesn’t really match his words, mouth pressed into a worried line. The fact that Sweet Pea can tell what the different quirks of his mouth mean doesn’t bother him as much as it should. He mostly just doesn’t like seeing this one.

“Is he gonna have a problem with me again?” he asks, half a joke. 

Jones quirks an eyebrow, “You care now?"

“No,” Sweet Pea says quickly, because obviously does not give a shit what Archie Andrews thinks of him, “I just don’t want him to be annoying about it—we have a game this weekend.”

Jones doesn’t look convinced, which is annoying, but he drops it to rub at his eyes some more and swing his backpack over his shoulder. 

Sweet Pea freezes in place, “He’s not gonna tell anyone, right?”

“No, of course not,” Jones says, and then pauses, “I’ll talk to him about it.”

Sweet Pea hums, satisfied, and there’s another pause. 

“So,” he starts, “Are we not gonna…?” 

“Asshole,” Jughead scoffs, and turns to start walking away. Sweet Pea scrambles to grab his back, and catches up to him in a few long strides.

“It was just a question!”

Jones talks to Andrews about keeping his dumb mouth shut about shit that isn’t his business—probably in a much “nicer” way than that—and it only takes the guy two days to be able to look either of them in the eye again. Which is “improvement,” Jones says. Andrews doesn’t try to shovel talk him, no matter how many Meaningful Glances he sends him during practice, but Sweet Pea has a feeling he’s just building up the confidence. 

He’s content with things for now, until Toni drops a bomb after school one day. 

“You wanna add Cheryl to the group chat?” He repeats, “The group chat is sacred, Toni.”

“It’s a group chat,” she says slowly, “It’s not like we’re letting her into the gang.” 

“Yeah, but if you add Cheryl, Fangs might wanna add Keller, too. Or Jones’ll add Andrews.”

Toni snorts, “Jug would never add Andrews to the group chat—you’d hurt the guy’s feelings too much. I’d also probably hurt his feelings.”

“Yeah,” Sweet Pea agrees, “And if we add Keller, I might hurt _his_ feelings. And then that would hurt Fangs’ feelings.”

Toni sighs, “We could make a new group chat.”

“What if I’m complaining about one of ‘em, but I mix up the group chats and they see it.”

“Just don’t complain about them.”

“That’s impossible.”

“We added Jughead to the group chat.”

“Yeah, when he passed initiation. Does Cheryl even _like_ the rest of us?”

Toni gives him a look, “She doesn’t know you—which is kinda the point of adding her to the group chat.”

She’s got a point. It’s not that Sweet Pea doesn’t appreciate Toni finally letting them into the know about her love life, but he just wishes it didn’t have to be this particular crazy, rich Northside girl. He knows he’s being dramatic, but come on. 

“Fuck,” he says, “fine! Make a new one, and you can add her.”

Toni exhales, something like relief, even as she rolls her eyes. “God, you’re dramatic,” she pauses, uncharacteristically hesitant, “Thanks, Sweets. I know how much group chats mean to you.” 

“Whatever,” he says, and rests his forearm on her head to watch while she makes a new one; she’s in a good enough mood that she lets him. 

FP is still in prison, because trials take a whole lot longer in real life than they do on TV, especially for people like FP, who no one in power really gives a shit about once they’re behind bars. Jones goes to visit him every other Sunday—sometimes two Sundays in a row—and usually he goes himself, but his bike is busted right now and they haven’t had the time or the money to take it in. Jones says that his Mister A might be able to do it, but “I’m not gonna ask him to right now, he’s probably busy with the election stuff.” Ricky’s offered to help, but Jones, probably wisely, said that he’ll probably just wait.

Point is, his bike is busted, and he never seems to want to ask Andrews for help in any capacity. Sometimes Ricky or Fangs will drive him up, and sometimes Sweet Pea does.

Today, Sweet Pea’s drawn the short straw—not that he had much else going on, and had already gassed up the night before so they wouldn’t break down halfway there.

Sweet Pea doesn’t usually go in and visit with him, ‘cause he feels like he’d be intruding, or something. He’s not close with his dad at all, but if it was his brother in here, he’d probably wanna have the time to themselves. He’s not sure what they talk about—it’s a little weird to imagine FP asking about things like school and grades and shit, but he’s gone off about his kid’s big brain and great writing or whatever when he’s blasted enough times for them all to know he cares, in whatever fucked up way he can. Sweet Pea never much liked to hear FP like that, wasted and talking to all of them about shit instead of the people he should’ve been talking to—it made him a little harder to look up to in the way Sweet Pea liked to.

So he’s sitting in the waiting room today instead of his truck, ‘cause the AC in it isn’t great and the weather’s getting hot, when Fred Andrews walks out of the bathroom. Sweet Pea only recognizes him ‘cause he’s seen him pick up his kid enough times after school.

He must look up too quick or stare too intense or something, because Fred Andrews glances over at him and, somehow, his eyes light up in recognition. Which is weird, ‘cause he’s never actually talked to the guy. 

And then he’s walking over, which is the opposite of what Sweet Pea would have liked, and then he’s introducing himself and saying “You’re… Sweet Pea, right?”

The name fits a little awkwardly in his mouth, the way it still does in his son’s. Sweet Pea blinks up at him for a moment, “How do _you_ know that?” 

It comes out harsher than he meant it to, but Fred Andrews just gives him this tired little smile and says, “I like to pester Jug into telling me about his new friends—all good things, I promise”

Sweet Pea has no idea how to answer that; mostly ‘cause he can’t imagine Jones having anything “good” to say to a nice northside dad about _him_. He searches the guy’s face for something that’ll give him away—something that’ll prove he’s lying. He doesn’t find anything, and it kinda pisses him off. 

“What, does he show you pictures, too?” 

“I’ve seen you at the school,” he corrects gently, “You here for FP?”

“Nah, I’m waiting for Jones—Jughead,” and then, because he’s never had much tact, “Are you?”

Fred’s friendly smile turns real “caught with his hand in the cookie jar” real quick, but he doesn’t lie. “Yeah, I—figured it was about time.”

There’s a moment where Sweet Pea kinda wants the conversation to end, because he thinks the ability to make him very uncomfortable must run in the Andrews family. 

Instead, because he’s a supremely nice person and knows how long it’s been since Jones has been to Andrews’ house, he says, “Jones—Jughead—should be out soon. If you wanna, like, stay and say hi.”

Fred hesitates for a moment or two, and lowers himself into the seat next to him. 

Goddammit. 

“How’s he been?” Fred asks, and it takes him a sec to realize he’s still talking about Jones. 

Sweet Pea shrugs, and crosses his arms, “His dad’s in jail. And his bike is busted.”

“His… motorcycle?” Fred asks cautiously, like he hopes that’s not what he means. 

“Yeah. He said he’s gonna wait til he’s got the cash to get it looked at. Other than that, he’s fine, I guess.”

Fred looks thoughtful for a moment, “Would you let him know he can bring it over, if he’d like? I know more about cars than I do about… bikes,” the word fits a little awkwardly in his mouth, “but I helped FP fix his up a few times.”

He’s not sure why that surprises him, but it does, a little. The idea of FP carting his bike all the way over to the northside so his high school boyfriend could help fix it—and of this guy fixing it—seems weird.

“Sure,” Sweet Pea says, voice pitched uncaring, “He’s been busy with campaign shit— _stuff_ —lately, but maybe when he’s got some freetime.”

Fred’s face lights up a little when he mentions the campaign, a little more life in him, “Oh yeah,” he says, “Archie told me you’re running for, what was it, president, right?” 

Sweet Pea crosses his arms, oddly self conscious under _Freddie Andrews’_ not even that sparkly gaze. “Yeah.”

Fred smiles, a little ghost of a thing, “I remember how big of a deal all that used to be.” 

“Did you ever run?” Sweet Pea asks—not cause he’s interested; he just doesn’t like sitting in silence for no reason. 

Fred shakes his head, “Nah, not personally. Didn’t want that kinda responsibility—probably wouldn’t’ve been able to handle it.” 

Sweet Pea snorts, and Fred glances over at him quizzically, “Sorry, I—the way FP talks about you, it’s hard to picture you as anything but, like, perfect.” 

“No one‘s perfect,” he says, maybe a little sad, “Not then and definitely not now.” 

They lapse into the exact kinda silence he does not like sitting in. God, this is uncomfortable. He wonders if the guy is usually more, like, talkative than he is right now—off day, maybe. Visiting your high school boyfriend in prison isn’t exactly the most cheerful thing to do. 

If Sweet Pea looks hard enough, he can see the lines of Andrews there—soft eyes and sincerity and shit—the same way he sometimes sees a little bit of FP’s frown when Jughead looks sad. It’s weird, so he looks away. He considers asking about the fact that he might still have FP’s initials on his hip, but decides against it; this doesn’t seem like the right kind of place for it.

“You’re running for mayor, right?” He asks. 

Fred nods, “Figure I don’t mind taking on the responsibility this time.” 

“Do you think you’ll be a good mayor? Or at least better than the last one?”

“I’m certainly gonna try,” Fred quirks a smile. 

Sweet Pea hums, “Jones thinks you’re gonna be a good mayor—Jughead, I mean. We bought fuckin’ pins ‘cause he heard _you_ were doing it.” Fred looks alarmed for a second, so Sweet Pea specifies, “They weren’t fancy or anything, we got ‘em for cheap.”

“That’s not what I…” Fred trails off, and then seems to shake himself, “I mean, it’s nice to know I have his support like that. I’ll try to live up to it.” 

Sweet Pea thinks about how to say this without sounding “mean” about it, ‘cause it’ll make Jones upset if he makes his Mister A upset. 

“We never really cared who was mayor,” he starts, “‘Cause no matter who it was, it stayed the same for us—none of ‘em ever gave a shit about the southside unless they needed someone to blame something on. I don’t know you, obviously, and I don’t get why the Joneses think you’re so great. But I hope you’re gonna be different. Are you?”

He risks a glance at Fred, and hopes he’s not about to be kicked out for starting a fight or something, but he doesn’t look mad. Or upset, really. He mostly just looks sad—and he can see the same furrow of his eyebrows that he saw when Andrews was apologizing—maybe thoughtful. 

“Yes,” he says, and he sounds more solid and sure of himself than he has the whole short time Sweet Pea’s known him, “I am—I will be.”

For some reason, Sweet Pea finds that he almost believes him. 

“Okay,” he says, feeling strangely uncomfortable, and then checks the time, “I think the hour’s almost up. If you still wanna stay and say hi.”

Fred smiles softly, “Course I’ll say hi,” he says, “It’s been a while since he’s come around the house—we miss his pancakes real bad.”

Sweet Pea scoffs, “Mine are better.”

Fred gives him an amused sort of smile—which Sweet Pea doesn’t like one bit, actually, ‘cause it reminds him of Jones a little bit—but just says, “I’m sure they are.”

Later, after he and Jones have stopped talking and making Sweet Pea feel like a kid waiting for his mom to stop chatting and hurry up and take him home, Sweet Pea says, “Your ‘Mister A’ said he thinks I’d make better pancakes than you.”

Jones sends him a deeply, deeply offended look, “Bullshit. My pancakes are fantastic.”

Sweet Pea shrugs, “I dunno what to tell you—he said it himself, he’s sure mine are better.”

“He just said that to be nice; he’s never even tried yours— _I’ve_ never even tried yours, ‘cause I’m always the one who makes breakfast.”

“No one asks you to.”

“You ask me to. You tell me to, actually—’hurry up Jones, I’m hungry,’” he drops his voice in a bad imitation of Sweet Pea’s.

“I just didn’t wanna embarrass you by upstaging you so bad.”

Jones scoffs, looking away so he doesn’t break and smile, “I guess you’re making your own fuckin’ breakfast next time—I’ll go and make the Andrews’ pancakes and let you starve. And I’ll lock the trailer so you can’t use my shit.”

“I know where the extra key is.”

“I’ll take it with me.”

“Wiggle the handle enough times and the door’ll pop open anyways.”

“That’s just mean,” Jones shakes his head, “At least _pretend_ I’m decently safe.”

“You have your dumb wooden baseball bat.”

Jones rolls his eyes, but he cracks and laughs, “That was one time. What else was supposed to do, grab a spatula?”

The mental image of Jones whacking a Ghoulie in the leg with a wooden fuckin’ baseball bat when they came to the trailer after Malachai got arrested never fails to make him laugh; the fact that it actually scared them off is even better. “At least you didn’t get your ass beat again.” 

“Just drive me home,” Jones says, reaching for the aux cord. 

“Do not touch that,” Sweet Pea warns; Jones does not listen to him, but he puts the truck in reverse anyways.

The Thursday before (student council) election day, Reggie Mantle invites him to a party.

Well, he invites the team to a party, “after the game Saturday, to celebrate our kickass winning streak,” and Sweet Pea is on the team, so Mantle tells him that he can come, “y’know, if you want—don’t feel obligated,” which pretty much seals the deal for him—if Mantle doesn’t actually want him to come, then of course he’s gonna show up. Just for fun. 

Mantle talks big game about how he’s inviting the cheerleaders, and the soccer team, and his other cool kid friends, so Sweet Pea assumes that means it’s fair game to bring the others. (He would bring them even if he “couldn’t”, but the point stands.) He brings it up at lunch the next day, to mixed reactions.

“I’m down,” Fangs says immediately, “I’m so fuckin’ down.”

Toni shrugs and says, “I guess I’ll go—pretty sure Cheryl’s gonna be there, too.”

Jones makes a face and says, “I’ll pass. Archie already asked.” When all three of them turn to look at him, he says, “What?”

“You can’t pass,” Toni says, a teasing smile on her face. “We've gotta show a united front.”

“For a _party_?” Jones

“Yeah, dude,” Fangs says. “We all gotta go—it’ll be fun! We can upstage ‘em all at beer pong.”

That makes Jones quirk a smile; they’re all very good at beer pong—even Jones, which was surprising, until you thought about his dad, and then it wasn’t that surprising. 

Sweet Pea kicks at him under the table and says, “Don’t be a bitch, Jones, it’s just a party. Who’s ‘scared of Reggie’ now?”

That makes Jones scoff, like he knew it would, and he stabs at his pasta, “God, fine. But I’m not drinking,” he says, no room for argument—not that Sweet Pea was planning to argue with him; FP’s alcoholism wasn’t exactly a secret.

“‘Course not,” Toni says, “Don’t know if I will, either—don’t wanna get wasted at a rich boy’s house.”

Jones snorts, “I hope Reggie tries to jump off his roof again; it’ll be fun to watch, at least.”

Fangs gasps beside him, eyes lighting up—Sweet Pea forgot he’s never heard this one. (He thinks, for a sec, about where he heard Jones tell it, and the way his wrist fit under his hand and the way he blinked up at him, and feels his stomach flutter; like a little girl with a crush—god, this place is doing something to him.)

“Mantle tried to jump off his roof?” he asks, positively gleeful.

Jones’ mouth curls into that smile he always gives right before he’s about to spin a story he thinks is real funny, and drops the plastic spork to prop his elbow on the table, “Guy was absolutely fuckin’ wasted,” he starts, and Sweet Pea settles to listen to the detailed version. 

Mantle’s house is almost insultingly big. Not as big as Blossom’s house, which Sweet Pea has only seen the outside of when he dropped Toni off a few times, but still fucking big. The front lawn alone is almost as big as his apartment’s kitchen and living room. God, he’s gonna have a fun time fucking everything up—and he’s gonna be able to, ‘cause he can _hear_ the party when they pull up. 

Sweet Pea has to park his truck a house or two down the street, cause there’s no damn room. Fangs says bikes would’ve been easier to park and Toni says truck’s safer, dude, truck means we’ve all gotta leave together. He reminds everyone to push the locks on the doors down into place when they get out; if he got stolen from in a fancy Northside neighborhood, he’s gonna sue. Toni raps on the door instead of letting them bust right in, and it swings open after a few moments. 

“Hey man,” Mantle says, and Sweet Pea respects how well the guy covers up his disappointment. The last time he went knocking on a northside door it was to get Andrews’ ass. Mantle glances back at the rest of them, and his eyebrows raise in something like surprise, “You got Wednesday Adams to come? Didn’t think he knew what a party was.”

It takes him a second to realize he’s talking about Jones, and by then Jones has already shoved Sweet Pea inside and flipped Mantle off along the way, “Fuck off, Reggie,” he says, “I’m gonna kick your ass at beer pong.”

The house is packed, and already fucking _loud_. 

“Who the fuck is DJ-ing?” Toni asks loudly, nose scrunched up in distaste, and Sweet Pea laughs. 

He sees a few people glance their way as they walk in, which he ignores, but he also sees some other southside kids lounging around. Thank god. 

They find Ricky pretty quick, who says he brought grass if they’re down, because of course he did, and they laugh a little—Sweet Pea wouldn’t call it giggling because he’s not eight—as they shove their way into the first floor bathroom, all four of them plus Ricky, not even that tight of a fit because of how fuckin big it is. They leave the door open, just so people can see their jackets and that they shouldn’t interrupt because they’re fucking busy. The window’s already cracked open, ‘cause of course it is—Ricky says half the kids in here have stopped at his locker for a hook up—but they act like it’s not, just cause they can.

Jughead has no traumatic aversion to weed, and Toni “didn’t say I wouldn’t get baked,” so Sweet Pea gets a face full of smoke, Toni blowing it straight at him with that teasing spark in her eye; he realizes it’s been a while since he’s seen it, and that’s he’s missed it, so he doesn’t even fake getting mad about it. 

He watches Fang’s mouth move around the joint, and the way he exhales smooth and coughs into a laugh at the end, ‘cause he always breathes too deep and swallows like it’s his first time again. He takes a heavy hit when he gets it next, making himself look away. 

He sees a few people start to walk in, notice the snakes on their backs and get freaked out enough to turn around. Cheryl Blossom does not turn around—just leans against the doorway with bright eyes and ignores all of them for Toni, who breaks into a lazy smile, so small that she’s a lightweight no matter how tough she is. 

“Hey, babe,” she says, and Sweet Pea can’t help but snort because he’s never heard her say _babe_ like _that_ , and she whacks him weakly in the shoulder. 

Toni can hold her booze well, but “She’s messy when she’s high,” he warns Blossom, because someone needs to.

Blossom gives Toni this fond little smile, and says, “Don’t worry, she’s in safe hands,” that prim and proper way she says everything, even though she’s visibly a little tipsy. 

Toni waves a little and says, “Have fun.”

Jughead gives her a thumbs up, taking a drag as he does like a fuckin’ pothead. 

They wander out eventually, flicking what’s left of the joint into the sink. Keller spots them from whatever corner of the room he’s in, and Sweet Pea ignores the way Fangs smiles and throws his arm over his shoulder. 

“Shit, Kevin, you bagged _Fangs_?” Jughead teases, even though all of them know it’s “official” even if it’s “technically” not. He’s always more open than usual, more friendly with people the way he’s usually just friendly with his friends. 

Keller, for his part, plays along, “I’ve got game,” he says. Sweet Pea forgets that the two of them have known each other for years.

“You better treat him right, or Sweet Pea’ll kick your ass.”

Kevin’s smile turns a little alarmed, and Sweet Pea can’t help but huff a laugh. 

Fangs says, “Don’t worry about it,” to Keller. 

“Maybe worry a little,” Jones stage whispers, and Fangs shoves him lightly. Keller laughs nervously—good, he thinks, the guy could use a little fear of responsibility in him, probably doesn’t have enough with his dad as Sheriff.

Mantle takes them up on Jones’ beer pong challenge. He drags Andrews onto his team, and Sweet Pea watches him and Jones grin at each other from across the table. 

“Let’s fuckin’ crush them,” he tells Jones, who smiles up at him almost the same way he smiled at Andrews, and then they do. Crush them. Because if there’s one thing hanging around a bar since you started tagging along with your brother at thirteen teaches you, it’s how to play fucking beer pong. He’s good at pool, too, at this point, but all they’ve got here is a ping pong table. And Jones isn’t bad, either, what with having an alcoholic dad who used to try to bond by getting wasted and teaching him how to take shots and shit.

Sweet Pea downs all of Jones’ drinks for him, and Mantle rolls his eyes at first but doesn’t actually say anything—crazy, Sweet Pea thinks, he didn’t think people like Mantle knew what being nice was; Sweet Pea’s not sure if it’s out of empathy or just not wanting to start something—until he surprises him by throwing back half a cup halfway through the game. 

Jones shrugs at his silent question, “I can get a _little_ crossed. Like as a treat.” 

Sweet Pea snorts, and says, “Whatever.” 

But the point is, his arms are a little heavy and his shoulders are a little lighter and they fucking win like they knew he would.

Mantle offers him a jock-y pat on the back, which Sweet Pea tries not to take to heart, ‘cause the guy is drunk and will be back to calling him trash in the morning, and says, “That was embarrassing for me; I dunno if you can come to my next party.”

“You cop weed from Ricky. That’s an open invite.”

Mantle says, “Shit,” under his breath, and Sweet Pea promises to go a little easier on him next time, and Reggie says, “Fuck off, I’ll get your ass next time.”

Andrews slides up to talk to Jughead, and Sweet Pea rolls his eyes and leaves them to go find Toni or something. He sees her and Cheryl in the big ass living room with a couch to themselves; he plops down next to them, interrupting their moment. Cheryl levels him with a Look that isn’t nearly as impressive when she’s tipsy.

“Hey, Sweets,” Toni says, “You win?”

“Obviously.” He notices that, instead of a can or a bottle, Cheryl has a full on fancy fucking wine glass in her hands. Full of wine. Is he trippin’? “What the fuck?”

Cheryl takes a pointed sip of her wine, dark red like her fuckin’ lipstick, “I don’t drink beer.”

He looks at Toni, because he cannot for the life of him gauge if she’s joking or not. Toni gives a small shrug, like its the most normal thing in the world, and Sweet Pea decides he hates it here. What the fuck.

“Okay,” he says, “Stay classy, I guess.”

Cheryl either doesn’t register the sarcasm in his voice or she chooses to ignore it, taking another dramatic sip of her wine. Like she’s a Victorian noble or something.

“Shit, I gotta pee,” Toni stretches out her legs, and pushes herself up, “Be right back—be nice,” she says, and he isn’t sure which one of them she’s talking to.

They sit there, for a sec, before Sweet Pea says, “I still think you should’ve decked Lodge in the hallway.”

Cheryl snorts a surprisingly unattractive laugh, “And broken a nail?”

“Couldn’t you just get ‘em redone?”

“It’d be a waste. Besides, I can't go around attacking everyone who makes me angry; we haven't gotten to _Carrie_ 's final act, even though I can make anything red work for me. ” Sweet Pea barks a confused laughs and she says, “What?”

He glances over at her wavy hair and the perfect way her legs are crossed, “I have no idea what the fuck you’re saying half the time. And I can never tell if you’re really all that or if you’ve just got a stick up your ass.”

“You’re too tall and the amount of gel you use in your hair is embarrassing,” she answers immediately, and Sweet Pea laughs. He likes her don’t give a shit attitude and the way she’s not afraid to come back at him. If he was sober it might be annoying, but right now he just thinks it’s funny.

“Can really see why Toni likes you,” he says. “She always goes for the bitchy ones.”

Blossom doesn’t snap at him for that like she might’ve before; she laughs too. “Can’t quite tell what Jughead would like about you—probably your height.”

Sweet Pea’s blood runs cold. “What?” he asks, even thought they both know what she’s talking about.

Cheryl quirks an unimpressed eyebrow at him, “You’re not nearly as inconspicuous as you think—you should try not being sneaky in a car with un-tinted windows.” 

Sweet Pea’s shirt suddenly feels very tight; his heart beats faster. Why does this freak him out so much? It’s not like the people who matter will think less of him, and he’s not afraid of people’s stupid judgment, but—this is Blossom, this is a rich northside kid who only stopped looking down on then ‘cause she likes Toni. Who has she told? Does Fangs know? Does Toni? Will it get back to his brother?

Something must show on his face, because Cheryl looks a little alarmed. “I… haven’t told anyone,” she says, voice much smaller; less confident than he’s used to. 

He forces his heart to beat slower; he’s fine. It’s fine. He still doesn’t know if he trusts her.

“Not even Toni?”

Cheryl shakes her head, “I hadn’t heard anything about it, so I assumed you were keeping it to yourselves. I’m a bitch, but I’m not in the practice of outing people.”

Sweet Pea releases a long breath. “Okay. I—thanks, I guess. Fuck.”

“Not that it’s any of my business,” she says, voice as airy as ever now that he’s calmed down, “But why keep it a dirty little secret. It’s not like anyone important will care.”

He’s a little weirded out by how she seemed to have read his mind. He shrugs, crossing his arms, “Why do you care?” 

Cheryl shrugs, “I mostly just want Kevin to know I’m right—I knew Jughead wasn’t into girls and he wouldn’t believe me. Said his gaydar was impeccable.”

Sweet Pea snorts, “Cliché.”

“We live in a small town; he’s allowed to be a bit cliche. The only other gay people he knew about were, like, that boy with the scarf from Glee.” 

“I don’t know what the fuck that is.”

“Probably for the best,” She says. “It might have made you think you have an impeccable gaydar.”

“How’d _you_ know Jones wasn’t straight?”

“The way he held Betty’s hand was uncomfortable for everyone. Including him. Also… just look at him. He’s infatuated with—“

“Fucking Andrews,” Sweet Pea agrees, “It’s annoying.”

“Well, yes. But I was also going to say you.” Sweet Pea blinks at her; she rolls her eyes and takes a sip of her wine, “He goes to watch you run around the gym everyday. And he lets you stick your tongue down his throat.”

“Gross,” he says, “Like you don’t do the same shit with Toni.”

“At least I didn’t pine about it,” she says, “I knew what I wanted and went for it.”

“God knows why Toni was into it.”

“Because she has impeccable taste,” she says, and then seems to deem the conversation over—Sweet Pea glances up and sees Toni walking back over. 

Her face lights up when she spots her girl, and Sweet Pea can’t help but be happy for her. Even if Cheryl is a bit much. He thinks about the way Jughead looks at Andrews, or the way he thinks he might look at Fangs. Wonders if Jones’ face ever changes when he sees Sweet Pea. If Fangs’ does. 

“See ya, bitch,” he tells Cheryl, and it’s a testament to how drunk she must be that all she does is flip him off and lift her pretentious wine glass in a goodbye. 

“ _Sweets_." 

Toni laughs, loud and light, and Sweet Pea decides to let it go. 

He watches them wander off, and lets himself take a few moments on the couch. He’s glad he’s still intimidating enough that no one tries to cuddle up next to him. 

He’s deciding whether or not to stay here in peace or get up and find one of the others to chill with now that Toni’s MIA for now, when he sees the familiar flash of the snake on Fangs’ back, Keller’s legs throw over his where they’re lounging in a big ass chair. He glances away—Fangs is busy, then. 

He stands up.

Where the fuck did Jones go?

He finds him in the hall near the kitchen, leaning back and animatedly talking to Veronica Lodge about something. Thank god, he thinks, he thought he was gonna have to interact with Andrews. Not that this is much better.

They’re saying something about, like, old movies or something, because they’re both real pretentious about obscure shit like that, and Jones is listening to her with this look on his face, somewhere between intrigued and vaguely confused.

At this point Sweet Pea’s a bit tipsy and a lot faded and he decides that he doesn’t wanna keep catching Fangs and Keller cozied up in the chair in the corner, so he throws his arm over Jones’ shoulder and bends his wrist a little to spill what’s left of his beer on his shirt—his own shirt, ‘cause he knows Jones would get pissy if he spilled it on his. 

“Shit, Jones, be careful,” he says, just loud enough that Jughead will catch it. Jughead leans into him, tilting his head up to look back at him. 

“That was your own fault,” Jughead says, breath against Sweet Pea’s chin. 

“Help me clean it up, asshole,” he says, not sure how subtle he’s actually being, going by the odd look on Lodge’s face. Jughead rolls his eyes, but doesn’t argue, says a quick sorry, _see ya later_ to Lodge, who gives a slow, uncertain _um, bye?_ back, and lets Sweet Pea tug him away out of the kitchen and up the stairs. 

Jughead’s the one who tugs him into the bathroom, ‘cause he’s the one who’s been here before, and there’s no one else in the hallways right then so Sweet Pea doesn’t have to find an excuse to push the door shut behind them. Jughead’s the one who reminds him to “lock the door, stupid.” 

So he locks the stupid door. 

He goes to loop his arms down around Jughead’s neck, but Jughead ducks out of reach; Sweet Pea makes an annoyed noise, and Jughead smiles, pot making him easily fond. 

“I’m helping you clean up,” he says, cheeky, reaching down for the toilet paper. “You shouldn’t assume I’m gonna put out.”

“It’s not gonna come out with water,” he says, thinking a bit about watching Jones try to rub blood out of his uniform shirt.

“We gotta try,” Jughead gives him a wry little smile and a quirk of his eyebrows, “Or people might talk.”

Sweet Pea rolls his eyes, but leans back against the door and lets him dab some water on it a few times. He seems to consider throwing the wad of toilet paper away, but just ends up tossing it in the direction of the trash can. Sweet Pea snorts. 

“Thanks for nothing,” he says.

“You’re the one who poured it on yourself. You’re a shit actor, by the way. Just in case you were plannin’ to try out for the musical.”

Sweet Pea lets himself get all up in Jughead’s space—which there’s a lot of, ‘cause even the guest bathroom looks like it’s something out of a hotel—because he knows Jones will let him. He lets him take all kinds of liberties he would’ve bitched about before; Sweet Pea likes to think it’s because he’s just that good.

He braces his hands on the counter on either side of him, and pauses, “They have _musicals_ here? I thought that shit only happened in movies.”

Jughead snorts, “Like what, High School Musical?”

“Yeah, yeah—I doubt there’re enough people here who can actually sing. A real ass school musical sounds awful.”

Jughead shrugs, “I don’t think they let everyone in; they’ve got auditions.”

Sweet Pea shakes his head, shuddering at the idea of listening to someone’s kid try to sing for an hour. “Just do a normal play.”

“Kevin likes musicals,” Jughead says sadly, “He’s the drama club guy.”

Sweet Pea scoffs, “Cliche.”

“Mm,” Jughead offers, not agreeing but also not disagreeing. God, Sweet Pea hopes Keller doesn’t get Fangs into the musical theater idea, because then Sweet Pea would have to go watch the whole thing just to get to his scenes. Is Fangs good at singing? It kinda bothers him that he doesn’t know. 

“Fuck a school musical,” he says, shoving those thoughts away easy, “Rick kids are so annoying.”

Jughead laughs into the kiss, and he tastes like pot and beer and whatever it is he snatched from the kitchen, and it’s not the best thing in the world but he doubts he’s much better. He gets used to it quick enough, and gets tired of having to lean down so much just as quick—he hoists Jughead up by the back of his thighs and drops him onto the sink counter.

“Jesus,” Jughead gasps, all breathy and grabbing at Sweet Pea’s shoulders, “Fuckin’ warn a guy. What’re you so strong for.”

Sweet Pea’s ego boosts the way it always does when his impressive muscles are mentioned, “What’re you so light for,” he shoots back, and steps forwards before Jughead can answer.

There’s [something loud and vaguely rock](https://open.spotify.com/track/08l9WKDuRyGeStQ9ojTlFh?si=eD9L8skBTwS4d6spYrTdAQ) rumbling up through the floorboards, and Sweet Pea likes the way it feels far away, the way the bar sounds when he’s lounging in the back room or listening to his upstairs neighbors blasting their shit in the evening. He thinks he might know this song, but doesn’t care enough to think about it any more than a fleeting thought of _guess they switched the shit playlist out for something better_ —more important shit on his mind, like the way Jones’ thighs feel bracketing his hips and the way he’s hyper aware of it. Sweet Pea’s got him up on the counter, back pressed against the mirror, and his head feels light and airy and Jughead’s breath is hot against his mouth and his hands are warm against his neck; Jughead tilts his head back and it clacks against the glass, and he does that huffy noise he does when he’s annoyed.

“What?” Sweet Pea asks.

“My fuckin’ back hurts,” Jones complains, “Can we go somewhere else?”

“Fine,” Sweet Pea relents, because standing up with his hands pressed against the fake granite wasn’t doing him any favors either. “Someone’d bang on the door eventually, anyways.”

They leave, not bothering to make an excuse about helping him wash beer off his shirt. Sweet Pea pushes past the few people in the hallway and shakes doornobs until they find a room that opens without a yell to fuck off. He shoves the door shut and takes the opportunity to slip out of his jacket, tossing it onto the—fuckin’ huge, by his standards—bed for safe keeping. 

“Is this his parents’ room?” Sweet Pea asks, glancing around, and Jughead laughs.

“God, I hope not.”

“Look at that dresser. That's definitely a rich dad’s dresser.”

“Why do they have such a big mirror?” Jughead asks. 

“Fuckin’ rich people,” he says, falling back into the huge fucking bed and tugging Jughead along with him. 

Jughead lets him, melting against him like that kinetic sand shit his brother used to get him sometimes, planting his knees on either side of him and settling into Sweet Pea’s lap easy as that.

He tries to shrug out of his own jacket but it gets caught on one of his shoulders, so Sweet Pea huffs a laugh and helps him tug it off. He tosses it behind him, also for safe keeping, and lets his hands slide down to hold his hips steady. 

Sweet Pea will be honest: he wasn’t the best at all this when they first started—neither of them were-but they’ve been getting better at it. Not trying to make the front seat of Sweet Pea’s truck Work For Them was a good start. The backseat works fine, lets them spread out and not risk Jughead bumping into the steering wheel too hard and scaring them both with the car horn.

Jughead is also a much better kisser when he’s blazed. He’s bolder, and he lets his hands wander instead of staying stuck to Sweet Pea’s shoulders. He just does what fuckin’ feels nice instead of overthinking every little thing. Sweet Pea shivers at Jughead’s hands on the back of his neck, and he slides a hand up under that dumb hat until it falls onto the bed behind him. For that he hides it, his hair is real fucking soft—Sweet Pea likes running his fingers through it, and Jughead gasps into his mouth, fingers flexing against his jaw.

Sweet Pea feels light and loose and inhibitionless, so he lets his hands slip up under the bottom of his shirt, feels Jughead trace the curve of his neck and his arms and that spot behind his ears that always makes him feel weird. He teases the hem of Jughead’s jeans, fingers dipping down the back, and Jughead pulls back. 

“What’s up,” Sweet Pea says more than asks, and he must have some look on his face ‘cause Jughead relaxes immediately.

“I’m not gonna—“ he makes a messy, uncoordinated gesture between them, “when we’re not… I mean, I’m high as fuck right now,” he breathes, exhaling on a laugh, like Sweet Pea doesn’t know.

“Chill out,” he says, can’t help the way he laughs a little with him, “I’m not gonna take my clothes off in Mantle’s parents’ room.” 

Jughead snorts, covering his mouth with the back of his hand. Seems to sober up, just a little, and glances away. “I don’t know if I… if I’ll ever wanna… y’know. M’sorry.”

That’s not the greatest thing in the world to hear from the guy you wouldn’t actually mind sticking his hand down your pants or vice versa, but Sweet Pea’s not the kind of asshole who’s gonna push for something he doesn’t wanna do. So he shrugs, tucks his fingers into his belt loops instead and tugs him closer.

“It’s whatever,” he says, the word rolling off his tongue, “As long as I can still…” he leans in again, and Jughead tilts his head back to meet him again. 

Sweet Pea notices the door swing open halfway there—even though it barely makes a sound, rich people and their well oiled hinges—and opens his eyes to see Archie fucking Andrews, because it’s always Archie fucking Andrews, frozen like a deer in fucking headlights. Which, fine, the locker room is fair game, but a closed door at a house party? Even if they forgot to lock it, take a fucking hint. 

He’s not actually planning on saying anything—mostly just goes to ignore him and let the guy leave with some dignity—but then he… doesn’t fucking leave. And Sweet Pea’s unresponsive for a moment too long, because Jughead pulls back and follows his gaze, and inhales sharp and quick. 

“What the fuck, Archie?” he says, and Andrews finally seems to snap back into his body and has the decency to look embarrassed. 

“Sorry,” he says, voice high and very obviously tipsy, face flushed enough to match his dumb hair, even in the low light, “I was, uh, looking for the bathroom.” 

Jughead sighs, rubbing at the bridge of his nose like he does when he’s fed up, “You’ve been to Reggie’s house a million times, how do you forget where the bathroom is?”

“I, um,” Andrews stutters, somehow slurring a one syllable word, and Sweet Pea physically feels Jughead soften where he’s still basically in his lap—and it’s a testament to how completely crossed he is that he hasn’t scrambled off of him yet. “The doors all look the same up here.”

Jughead sighs again, something more fond this time, looser, more open with shit now that he’s not stone cold sober, “It’s down the hall, Arch. Last door on the left.” 

Andrews stands there for a few moments longer, gaze so heavy that _Sweet Pea_ can feel the way it lingers on Jughead’s hair and mouth and neck and ruffled shirt, and especially the way it stays, for a moment or two, on Sweet Pea’s fingers still hooked in Jughead’s belt loops. His face does this weird shuttery thing that would probably look less like he’s having a stroke if he weren’t completely blasted, and he nods, tearing his eyes away to look back up at Jugheads’ face. 

“Thanks,” he says, swallowing heavy, “Um. I’m gonna…” he makes a move to leave and raises his hand in a sloppy thumbs up, “Have fun, I guess.” 

And then the door swings mercifully shut behind him. 

“Jesus,” Sweet Pea breathes, and Jughead slumps against him, forehead hot against his neck, and laughs weakly. “Has he never heard of knocking?”

“God, his face,” Jughead says, “I feel kinda bad—prolly doesn’t love walking in on it. Gonna traumatize him or somethin’.” 

Sweet Pea snorts, “Make him jealous, maybe.” 

Jughead pulls back to squint at him, “Don't make fun of me—if it was Fangs who kept walking in you’d feel bad, too.”

Sweet Pea feels himself scowl, the light way he’d been feeling turning very heavy, very fast, “What’s Fangs got to do with it?”

“Nothing,” Jughead says, “I’m just saying—I feel bad.” 

“Fangs isn’t like Andrews at all,” Sweet Pea continues, not really sure what he’s trying to say. Jughead squints at him again, tilting his head in confusion. 

“What?” 

“Because, like, Andrews’s gotta know how you, how you feel. And he just acts like he doesn’t, ‘cause he’s too chicken shit to admit it.” 

Jughead’ face falls quickly, blazed confusion slipping into blazed offense. “What, like you’re so fuckin’ subtle?”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“ _Everyone_ knows you like Fangs—I knew you liked Fangs, like, two weeks in. You’re not subtle.”

“But _he_ doesn’t know,” Sweet Pea says, because the fact that he likes Fangs isn’t the point, and the fact that he can suddenly admit it to himself now of all times and places isn't the point, “Or else he’d say something. ‘Cause he’s not like Andrews—if he knew, he wouldn’t… fake it.” 

“Dude, what are you…? Archie’s not—he’s not faking anything. He doesn’t—he doesn’t know.”

“He’s faking it cause he likes you too, dumbass. But he’s too much of a bitch to do anything about it.” 

Jughead’s mouth curls into something delicate, more delicate than he’d ever show sober, “Fuck off. Don’t make fun of me.” 

“I’m not,” Sweet Pea says, not quite sure what they were arguing about to begin with—he just knows that Andrews is not like Fangs, because if Fangs knew about… if he knew, he wouldn’t pretend not to know. Because if he does, and he is, Sweet Pea doesn’t know what he’d do with himself—doesn’t wanna think about what that could do. Like with his brother. It could fuck everything up, and Fangs has a boyfriend, and Fangs is his best friend in this whole shitty world and he’s not like Andrews, who actually blushes every time he sees Jughead kissing someone else and still never says a word. Fuck, his head kinda hurts. He decides he’s more drunk than he is high, and booze always hits a little worse. He shouldn’t’ve taken that extra shot, but he’d wanted to one up Mantle so bad. “I’m not. I’m just saying.”

Jughead presses his mouth into a thin line and shakes his head—and then seems to think better of it and stops. “Just—don't make fun of me. Archie doesn’t… don’t make fun of me.”

“I’m not,” Sweet Pea says again, because he doesn’t like the way Jughead’s voice gets all wobbly at the end, and he wishes Andrews hadn’t barged in and fucked the vibe up, as usual. He can still hear the music blasting downstairs, faint through the door, and if Jughead cries about Archie fucking Andrews while he’s literally sitting in Sweet Pea's lap in Mantle’s parents’ bedroom, Sweet Pea is gonna lose it and have to go find the guy and knock him out. Fucking ridiculous. “For real.” 

He feels Jughead breathe deeply, not as shaky as it could be, and he takes it as the go ahead to unhook one hand from his belt and run it through Jughead’s hair instead. Jughead, just as touch starved and fucked as the rest of them, softens under it quick as that. Like Toni pressed against him in the corner of the holding cell the sheriff kept them in overnight after the raid, or Fangs’ shoulders under his hand whenever he’s stressed and wound up tight as a wire. He wonders vaguely if he should hug his friends more, and maybe his brother too, just to stop every single nice touch from being some revolutionary thing, and if that would be nice for him, too, and how much that would fuck up the image he’s cultivated so carefully for himself. He’s very proud of that image. Maybe not hugs, he decides. Much to think about. 

“You good?” he asks, once Jughead’s shoulders have loosened up again, and Jughead nods. “We can… we can leave, if you want.” 

Jughead seems to consider, and shakes his head, shifting to cross his ankles behind Sweet Pea’s back instead of leaving his knees pressed—probably uncomfortably—into the bed. “I’m good,” he says, “unless you wanna walk back to the trailer. ‘Cause neither of us are driving.”

“I know that,” Sweet Pea scoffs, but it’s half hearted and pot-heavy, now that he's calmed down again. “Was just making sure.”

“What a gentleman,” Jughead teases, and smiles loose again. 

“Yeah, I know,” Sweet Pea says, and tilts his head back easy when Jughead tugs a little at his hair. He knows the little shit like to feel taller sometimes. He thinks it’s kinda cute, mostly ‘cause he usually gets a kiss or two out of it, and he’s very confident in the fact that he will forever stay being taller no matter what Jughead tries. 

He lets Andrews and Fangs and all that messy shit they almost dug up slip to the back of his mind, and then drip down off his shoulders with Jughead’s hands, smoothing down his shirts and then sliding back up his neck. 

Mantle, unfortunately for all of them, does not try to jump off his roof again. Toni ends up driving them all home—minus Fangs, who goes… somewhere with Keller; hopefully not to the fucking sheriff’s house—the first one to sober up enough to not fucking kill all of them, and Sweet Pea doesn’t bother trying to get back to his apartment from the trailer park—Jughead graciously offers him his couch, and he graciously, even though that couch is shady as hell, accepts.

Hate to say it, but another decent thing about FP still being in prison is that he doesn’t have to worry about him possibly seeing something he might not want him to see. A thought hits him, and he gasps, “Does your dad know?”

Jughead glances over at him, rummaging through the closet to find a blanket “big enough for your long ass legs”, and says, “Huh?”

“Does he—does he know that we…?” 

Jughead tilts his head at him, “Why would I tell my dad I make out with you in your truck? ‘S not any of his business.”

That makes Sweet Pea laugh, shoulders sagging in relief, and Jughead looks at him odd—a little fond, maybe, the way he looks at Andrews when he says something particularly, in Sweet Pea’s opinion, stupid as fuck. Huh. 

Jughead gives up trying to find a bigger blanket, pressing his fingers to his temples and saying, “Guess you’re gonna have to freeze, dude,” and Sweet Pea pesters him until he says that god, fine, you can take half the bed. He lays down a solid “no cuddling policy” and Sweet Pea rolls his eyes and says “nothing below the belt, I fuckin’ got it,” and they must somehow get from there to into the bed, ‘cause the next thing he knows, it’s the next morning and his head hurts like a bitch.

“Jones,” he says, blindly feeling his way into the kitchen, eyes closed against the light, “I’m hungry.” 

“Make your own pancakes, asshole,” Jughead says, “since yours are so fuckin’ good.”

(He still gets up and makes the pancakes, though. And eggs. ‘Cause “they’re good hangover foods”, and also mixes him this weird coffee-adjacent drink and says “family cure, dude, trust me.”

Eerily, it does help.)

He hears him on the phone later, talking to Andrews, who’s apparently still being a coward about shit, he thinks, even after last night, “You really thought I was gonna have sex in _Reggie’s_ house? In his _parents’ bedroom?_ Gross, Archie!” 

There’s a bunch of muffled words that sound suspiciously like “it’s not a big deal, me and Ronnie—” before Jughead cuts him off with a disgusted noise.

“I don’t wanna hear about the nasty shit you’ve done in Reggie’s parents’ bedroom, _god_.”

“I do,” Sweet Pea says, even though he really doesn’t, just so Jughead will flip him off.

“I don’t care how many times it was,” Jughead says into the phone, “Stop, stop—I’m gonna hang up on you.”

Jughead does not hang up on him; Sweet Pea spends the morning working his way through a plate of scrambled eggs and listening to Jughead and Andrews both pretend that nothing is out of the ordinary. 

So, the fucking usual. He rolls his eyes and pulls out his phone to text Fangs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the serpent teens are definitely "the cool kids who smoke in the bathroom at parties" and i think we shld all embrace that. also i wrote the kinetic sand analogy while i was also very high and that's why it makes no sense and also why i left it in 😌 we love realism
> 
> thank u for reading! comments are always appreciated, especially these days. come vibe with me on [tumblr](http://gaycinema.tumblr.com/) if u wanna


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two days later, they reveal the student council election winners over the morning announcements—to be honest, Sweet Pea was expecting another assembly, but this is fine, too. It’s definitely less of a hassle for everyone involved. 
> 
> They go through the smaller stuff, like treasurer and shit, first, saving the best for last. He catches Fangs’ eye across the aisle—he’s the only other person he has class with this period—and watches him cross his fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the 2 month wait.............life got in the way lol. this one's a little shorter than the last two have been but i hope you still enjoy it <3

Sweet Pea was right, obviously—about the 'Andrews working up the courage to give him the shovel talk' thing. He’s honestly surprised he hasn’t tried to scare him off yet; the guy he met back when he got a gun pulled on him definitely would have by now. Maybe he actually meant it when he apologized, earnest fucker that he is. Maybe people really can change. What a concept. 

He hasn’t said much to him since the party Saturday. It’s Wednesday now, and (student council) Election Day is Friday; Sweet Pea’s changing after practice and Jughead’s off doing school newspaper shit when Andrews quits his whole awkwardly hovering thing for once and asks, straight up, if he can “talk to him about something.” 

Sweet Pea, kind of impressed that he finally came out and decided to say something, says, “Sure. Can I put a shirt on first?” 

Andrews looks away and nods, “Yeah, yeah. I’ll... meet you in the parking lot?”

Sweet Pea blinks, “What, are we gonna fight? ‘Cause I don’t wanna get kicked off the team ‘cause of you.” 

Andrews looks alarmed, and shakes his head vigorously, “What? No, of course not. I just—figure it’d be nice to get some air.”

“Okay, whatever,” Sweet Pea says slowly, turning away to pull a clean shirt over his head. Andrews takes the hint, and goes to grab his stuff. 

They end up moving to leave at the same time, which, great. The walk out to the parking lot is probably awkward, but Sweet Pea can’t tell—mostly because he’s ignoring the guy to text Fangs about the calc homework. They stop in front of Sweet Pea’s truck. Andrews looks up at him expectantly, like he’s not the one who asked to talk; Sweet Pea does the nice thing and slips his phone into his back pocket, crosses his arms and says, “So what is it, carrot top. You finally gonna shovel talk me?”

Andrews sputters for a second, like he wasn’t obvious from the beginning, and shoves his hands in his pockets. 

“I—I guess that what you could call it,” he says, looking extremely uncomfortable, “I’m not gonna, like, threaten you.”

“What a relief,” Sweet Pea says flatly, “I’m so scared of you.” 

Andrews frowns, but doesn’t take the bait. 

“So,” he starts, “I don’t know if you guys are just... or if it’s serious or whatever. It’s not—not really any of my business.”

Sweet Pea snorts, cutting him off, “It’s not,” he agrees; Andrews frowns harder, but continues.

“But I still just wanted to say—be... be nice, okay.”

“It’s not serious,” Sweet Pea says, “It’s not like I’m gonna fuckin' propose to him.”

“I know,” Andrews says, visibly frustrated, “But still. Just—he’s my best friend and I don’t wanna see him get hurt again.”

“You think I’m gonna hurt him on purpose? I’m not an asshole like that.” 

“That’s not what I—“ he huffs, “Just don’t fuck it up too bad, alright?” 

Sweet Pea squints down at him; he’s not even sure if he should be offended at this point, mostly because Andrews is projecting so hard Sweet Pea can almost physically feel the weight of it, “Or what? You punch like a bitch.”

“I’m not gonna _fight_ you.”

“You’re awful at this. You wouldn’t hit a guy who fucked over your best friend?”

Something flashes across Andrews face too fast for him to catch, “Of course I would.”

They’re really in a school parking lot arguing about this, like Sweet Pea doesn’t have things to do and an English essay to write. 

Finally, Sweet Pea gives up and says, “Y’know, jealousy doesn’t look good on you,” because someone has to. 

“I’m not—“ Andrews flushes, and he can’t tell if it’s embarrassment or irritation. He takes a breath, and levels Sweet Pea with a stare, “It doesn’t look good on you either.”

Sweet Pea’s mind races back to the party, to Jughead: _everyone knows you like Fangs._ Is he really so obvious that even _Andrews_ ’ oblivious ass can tell? God. 

“Fuck off,” he says, voice hard; Andrews takes a step back. “That’s not your business, either.”

Andrews puts his hands up in surrender, “My bad, okay? I just... I don’t...” he trails off, and doesn’t seem to know how to end it. The sentence sits in the air, uncomfortable. Sweet Pea’s not sure how the guy was gonna end it, either. 

They stand there for a moment. Sweet Pea takes that moment to reflect on how stupid and dramatic his life has become. 

“Whatever,” he says, ready to be done with this conversation yesterday. “I won’t break his heart or whatever, okay? You people are so dramatic.”

Andrews looks like he wants to say something defensive, but stops himself. “Alright,” he says, “That’s… all I wanted to say. So. See you at practice tomorrow.”

“You know we literally share a class right?” Sweet Pea decides he finally has to say, just to make sure.

Andrews blinks at him, “Yeah. I just… didn’t think you’d want me to bother you, like, off the court.”

“You already bother me off the court.”

He doesn’t know what it is he said that makes Andrews light up the way he does, but, “Okay, cool,” he says, “I’ll see you in class tomorrow, then.”

He throws a wave over his shoulder and marches off to his own truck. Sweet Pea gets the sinking suspicion that he might’ve just accidentally given Andrews permission to bother him in class. He blames Jughead. 

“Thanks, asshole,” he says when he swings by the school later to pick Jones up from whatever he and the other newspaper people were doing.

“You’re welcome,” Jones answers, not skipping a beat, even though there’s no way he can know what he’s talking about. He's not a huge fan of the way that makes him wanna smile, so he decides not to do that. “What did I do?”

“Met Andrews at age five.”

“It was age six, actually,” he says absently, “What’d Archie do?”

Sweet Pea pulls out of the parking lot, “Tried to shovel talk me.”

“Oh god,” Jones says.

“I told you he would.”

“Was he intimidating at all?”

“Not even a little bit,” Jones looks suitably embarrassed enough to tease, “It was kinda sweet of him, to be honest.”

“Shut up,” Jones says, “Or I won’t let you eat my ramen and you’ll have to go to the store and get your own.”

Sweet Pea shuts up. Just for the ramen. Plus, Jones’ trailer and the grocery store are on opposite sides of the trailer park, and he doesn’t like to waste gas. Instead, he uses that time to think of more ways to make fun of Andrews’ bad shovel talk once he eats and the threat doesn’t matter anymore. 

Two days later, they reveal the student council election winners over the morning announcements—to be honest, Sweet Pea was expecting another assembly, but this is fine, too. It’s definitely less of a hassle for everyone involved.

They go through the smaller stuff, like treasurer and shit, first, saving the best for last. He catches Fangs’ eye across the aisle—he’s the only other person he has class with this period—and watches him cross his fingers.

“The winners for Vice President and President, respectively, are...” a painfully dramatic pause; Sweet Pea notices himself holding his breath, “Toni Topaz and Sweet… Pea… Mendez.”

“Hell yeah!” Sweet Pea says before the principle even finishes their names, slapping the table and standing up. Fangs stands up with him, fists raised in the air, and they high five hard. A few people clap more enthusiastically than the rest—mostly Southside kids. 

“Dude,” Fangs says, “How’d you get away with not using your first name?”

Sweet Pea shrugs, loose and excited, “They didn’t ask. No one calls Jughead his dumb birth certificate name.”

Mr Waters wishes them congratulations, but asks them to please sit down.

They sit down. 

He crash lands into some of the others in the hall after class; they ram into him so hard it actually knocks the wind out of him. 

“We won!” Toni says, and he leans down so she can throw her arms around his shoulders. 

“Fuck yeah we did,” he says, and she laughs as he gives her a little spin. She really is so fucking short.

“Swear to god it was the pins,” Jones says, grinning wide as he claps Sweet Pea loosely on the shoulder. 

“It was!” Fangs agrees, excited. 

“Who cares what it was,” Toni laughs, “We won!” 

They won! He knew they would win.

“I knew you’d win,” Jones tells him later in the back of the empty classroom the serpents claimed after the whole suspension mess, fingers laced together loosely against the back of Sweet Pea’s neck. 

“Bullshit,” Sweet Pea says, “You said you weren’t sure.”

“But I knew it, like, deep down.”

“Like in your heart?” Sweet Pea snorts, “This isn’t a movie.”

“Maybe I’m psychic,” Jones says, mock-serious. 

“What’s the weather gonna be like tomorrow, then?” he humors him.

Jones pulls out his phone, opens the weather app, and scrolls over twenty four hours from now, “A little cloudy,” he answers, sliding it back into his pocket, “but mostly sun.” 

“That’s vague. Temperature?”

“Early eighties.”

“I hope we get a snow storm or something, just so you’re wrong.”

‘It’s March,” Jones laughs.

“Uh, climate change? Pick up a textbook.”

Jones shoves him a little, but not hard enough to actually do anything. 

“Fangs said we should go to Pop’s later,” Jones changes topics, “To celebrate.”

“I’m down,” he says, “But I’m not paying—I’m the president now.”

Jones rolls his eyes, but he looks too fond for it to mean anything. “Shit, I'll put it on my tab. Mister President.”

“Y’know what, don’t call me that. It sounds weird.”

Jones smiles that annoying ass smile that means he thinks he’s won something, and is about to do something he thinks is very funny.

He opens his mouth—probably to say it again—but Sweet Pea puts a hand over his mouth before he can. Jughead makes an offended noise into Sweet Pea’s palm. 

This time, mostly because Jones isn’t talking, they hear the door handle turn before whoever’s turning it can bust in. Sweet Pea steps back, reaching down to grab his backpack off the desk, and when he looks up, it’s just Andrews. Of course.

“Hey,” Andrews greets him, not looking all shocked and embarrassed on walking in on the two of them, like, existing in the same space as he usually is. “I was looking for you.”

“That’s weird,” Sweet Pea says; Jones shoves him.

“I just wanted to say congrats on the win,” he says, sounding almost embarrassingly sincere, “I, uh, I voted for you guys.”

He’ll admit it—he wasn’t expecting that. His surprise must show enough on his face, because Andrews actually looks bashful about it. Sweet Pea had never truly seen “bashful” play out on someone’s face in real life before—it’s somehow completely different from straight embarrassment.

“Thanks, Andrews,” he says before he can change his mind; and then, because he can’t give the guy too much ground, “Good to see you have common sense. And morals.”

Jones snorts behind him, and Andrews glances over at him like he hadn’t realized he was there. Before he can say anything, though, Jones says, “To be honest, I kinda thought you were gonna vote for Reggie.”

Andrews shrugs, “I kinda did too.”

“Well I’m glad you came to your senses,” Jones says, teasing a little. Andrews smiles a little, weirdly soft. 

Sweet Pea doesn’t want this to devolve into him sitting here while the two of them stare at each other for a while, so he throws his backpack over his shoulder with passion. 

“Well, I gotta head out,” he says, and stands, glancing back at Jones. Jones, though, hesitates for a sec. He glances between him and Andrews.

“I, uh, actually have a little newspaper shit I have to work on,” he says, “You don’t have to wait for me—I can just make Archie drive me home.”

Sweet Pea wonders how he should feel about this—like, getting blown off by the guy he was kinda planning to make out with in the back of his truck later—and decides it doesn’t matter. He _is_ the one who’s been complaining about having to drive the guy everywhere. Plus, he doesn’t really wanna sit around and listen to any of their weird flirting; best to let them have a little privacy for that.

“Okay,” he shrugs, “Pop’s for dinner, though. Toni’ll kick your ass if you don’t show up.”

Jones makes another offended noise, “Who do you think I am?”

Sweet Pea chooses not to smile too much, “See ya,” he says instead, throwing a wave over his shoulder, “I’ll ask Fangs when he wants to go and let you know.”

“Congrats again,” Andrews says. Sweet Pea just tosses him another wave, and fishes his phone out of his pocket to see what Fangs is up to.

Turns out, there isn’t an assembly for announcing the winners, but there is one for, like, making it official. They have to do this whole putting their hand over their hearts while they’re sworn in type of thing, which is a little much for a student council, but whatever. They won. Every single rich kid who’s had shit to say to them since they walked in on day one has to watch him officially become their president—even if it’s just a dumb title, they still won it. 

He leans down while the principal is busy going on about the virtues they’ll have to model to the rest of the students so only Toni can hear him say: “I knew we were gonna run this shit.”

“Just like we ran the old school,” she says, not bothering to hide her grin. 

He just hopes he’s not gonna have to do that much actual work. He’s not really sure what Responsibilities come with the title, but whatever. He’s got Toni to help him out. And Toni’s smart and capable as fuck, so yeah. He’s pretty sure they’ve got this shit.

Fangs calls him at eleven pm on a Tuesday, about two weeks after Sweet Pea and Toni win the election, and tells him, voice choked up and sad, that he and Keller broke up. 

“Text,” Fangs says, “He literally sent me a break up text. Who does that?”

“Entitled sheriff’s kids,” Sweet Pea bites out, and then feels bad, “I’m sorry, I—I’m just pissed for you. You want me to beat his ass?”

Fangs laughs into the phone, watery but real, “You’d definitely get arrested for that.”

“He would snitch to his daddy, huh,” Sweet Pea agrees, “Whatever, I’ll do it anyway if you want. We could egg his house or something.”

There’s a rustling noise that’s probably Fangs shaking his head even though Sweet Pea can’t see him; Fangs is so used to video calling people that he always seems to forget that people on the phone can’t see what he’s doing. It makes something fond curl in Sweet Pea’s chest. He pushes it down, because this isn’t the time for it. 

“You just won student council,” Fangs reminds him, “I don’t want you to get in trouble and ruin that.”

He’s got a point, and Sweet Pea’s never been very good at disagreeing with him. 

So instead he sighs, loud enough that Fangs can hear it, “Fine. But I’m gonna freak him out at school.”

“You’re scary when you glare at people, dude.”

“That’s the point,” Sweet Pea says, “Fuck that guy.”

Fangs huffs another laugh, but it’s weaker this time. The receiver barely picks it up. “I just—sometimes I thought I mighta been, like, a rebound for Joaquin. He said I wasn’t, when I asked. And I really thought he, y’know. Liked me. I dunno, maybe I was a replacement—serpent kink, like Jughead said.” 

Sweet Pea’s not sure what to say, mostly cause he has so many things to choose from—it’s his loss, you’re more than a rebound, you deserve to be more than a rebound, he’s fucking crazy for cutting you loose, he didn’t deserve you to begin with, I would never treat you like that, let me show you I would never treat you like that.

But, because he’s come to accept that he’s a bit of a coward when it comes to Fangs, he says, “Toni would say somethin’ about rich people always getting off on gang affiliation.”

Fangs sniffs, “You think that’s what’s up with Cheryl, too?”

“Honestly? No idea.”

He can hear the smile curling around Fangs’ words when he says, “To be honest, I don’t think Toni would put up with that.” 

“I dunno, she seemed whipped from the start.”

Fangs snorts, “It’s mutual, for sure. Their PDA’s insane.” 

“Right?” Sweet Pea agrees, and thinks about the way Fangs and Keller would sometimes hold hands when they were chilling in the pretentious student lounge, and about the way they were cuddled up on the couch at Mantle’s party last month. He wonders if Fangs is thinking about that, too. “Hey,” Sweet Pea says, and he can hear his own voice softening. 

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry he broke up with you. I know you were really into him.” 

He hears Fangs sniff again, “It’s okay—it’s not your fault. It just came out of nowhere. Maybe it didn’t. I’m not very good with that shit—with, like, noticing things that people don’t tell me.”

“It’s not your fault if he didn’t tell you shit,” Sweet Pea says, “That’s on him. You deserve better than a fuckin’ text message.”

“Thanks, Sweets,” Fangs says, and that dumb nickname always hits a little different when it comes from him. There’s a pause, “Sometimes it feels like there’s stuff you aren’t telling me, either.”

Sweet Pea’s heart catches in his throat, for just a sec. “What?”

He hears another rustling noise—probably shrugging, this time. “I don’t know. I just feel like we’re, y’know, more distant now. And it’s fine if there’s stuff you don’t wanna tell me—like, I had stuff going on with Kev - with Keller that I didn’t talk about. But you _can_ tell me things. If you want.”

He sounds real unsure at the end, in a way Sweet Pea’s never really heard before. He’s been a little shy about, like, his essays or his projects and stuff before, but never about anything that had to do with _them_ . It’s always been straightforward and open and easy between them. It’s never felt like this, and Sweet Pea doesn’t like it at all. He knows part of it is his fault, because of—well, _because_ —and that just makes him feel worse. 

“I know,” he says, because he wants Fangs to stop sounding so unsure about being trusted and, like, wanted, “I know. I’m sorry we haven’t, like, talked as much. I don’t... there’s just some stuff that I—that I’m not sure I... wanna talk about yet. It sounds stupid.”

“No it doesn’t,” Fangs says softly, “I get it. It’s just—I didn’t do anything, right? Like, it’s not about me?”

Fuck. How does he answer that without a) lying, or b) admitting that most of the internal conflict he’s been having lately is actually directly tied to Fangs and how hard he punches and the way his smile looks under neon lights. 

“No,” he says, not too quickly but not too slow, “Course not. You didn’t do anything. It’s my own shit.”

“Okay,” Fangs says, sounding relieved.

“Plus, you’re the one who just got his ass dumped,” Sweet Pea says, changing the subject with a lot less subtly than he could’ve had on a good day. “What’re we talking about me for.”

“Well someone’s gotta do it,” Fangs says, and just like that, the mood is lifted and the tension in the air is released. God, that was a heavy conversation; Sweet Pea’s gonna need a day or two to recover before he can try something like that again. He’s self aware enough to know he’s got a small capacity for vulnerability, emotional or otherwise.

“Man, everybody talks about me,” he rolls right along with it, “I’m the student council president now.”

Fangs makes an ugh sort of noise, “Sure,” he says, and then they leave the Keller topic behind. By the time they’re both tired enough to hang up and go to bed, Sweet Pea has almost forgotten why Fangs had called in the first place. He wonders if Fangs has, too, or if he’s just trying really hard to act like it. 

He kind of hates that he can’t tell. They really have been spending less time together than usual. Either way, he says goodnight and Fangs says goodbye the same way he did the night he called to talk about getting together with Keller. Sweet Pea is hit with a surge of deja vu, except this time he doesn’t feel quite as strange as he did that first time, even though this was probably worse news.

Does that make you a bad friend, he wonders, staring up at his bedroom ceiling, being relieved about your best friend getting dumped? Ugh. He’s starting to wonder if it would’ve been better for his mental state, in the long run, if Southside High had just fucking stayed open. Nothing had ever been this complicated over there. 

He sighs, and rolls over to turn the lamp off. Fucking annoying.

So Fangs and Keller break up. Which means Fangs’ schedule is much less busy than usual, which means he and Sweet Pea can finally just… hang like they used to. Sweet Pea kind of feels bad for feeling so happy about, like, the effects of Keller breaking his best friends heart. He pushes those feelings down in favor of just—trying to make Fangs feel better.

He can tell the others feel the same way—about the making Fangs feel better part. Their next movie night, they let him pick all four movies. Toni forgoes spending time with Blossom for a few days to spend it with Fangs instead, and Blossom doesn’t even complain about it at lunch that much. Fuck, Jones has been sharing his _fries_ with him. He doesn’t even share his fries with _Andrews_. Sweet Pea, for his part, does his best to look menacing when he sees Keller in the hallways or in class; he's had plenty of practice, so Keller looks suitably spooked, and gives them all a wide berth. 

He can tell Fangs appreciates it all by the way he gets all happy and embarrassed about the little things they’re obviously doing on purpose. It makes something in Sweet Pea’s heart flip a little whenever he sees it.

During lunch a week or so after the breakup, Fangs suggests finally getting Jones’ bike fixed. Jones blinks, looking as surprised as Sweet Pea feels. 

“It’s not that big a deal,” Jones says, deflecting in that way he tends to do when his own personal problems are brought up, “Sweets is a great chauffeur.”

Sweet Pea shoves him a little, and Jones just grins at him. 

Fangs picks at his pasta salad a little bit, “Yeah, but I just figure—well, I owe you for trying to cheer me up the past week.”

“Dude,” Jones says, “You don’t owe me anything—break ups are harsh.” 

Speaking from miss Betty Cooper experience, probably. 

“It _is_ kind of annoying that you ask for rides all the time,” Toni says, gently bullying him into the direction of accepting help. 

“Real annoying,” Sweet Pea agrees. Jones rolls his eyes at him. 

“I can’t afford to take it in right now,” he says. 

Fangs frowns, disappointed. Sweet Pea can’t believe he’s gonna say it, but: “Andrews’ dad offered to help fix it.” 

Jones blinks over at him this time, “Huh? When?”

Sweet Pea shrugs, “That time I ran into him when you were visiting your dad.” 

“The guy who’s running for mayor, right?” Fangs asks, looking much more pleased already. 

“Yeah,” Sweet Pea says. 

“You told him my bike was busted?” Jones asks, eyebrows furrowing.

Sweet Pea shrugs again, a little self conscious—it’s not like he was actively trying to talk about Jones, “He asked how you were doing, so I answered.”

“You coulda just told him I was fine.”

“I’m an honest man,” he says somberly. 

Jones shoots him a pointed look, which Sweet Pea ignores. 

“If he offered, we should take him up on it,” Fangs says. “Or you’re never gonna get it fixed.”

“I don’t know,” Jones says, hesitant, “he’s probably busy with all his campaign stuff.”

“He offered,” Sweet Pea grudgingly reminds him. 

“We could ask if he’s free this weekend or something,” Fangs says, “Plus, I kinda wanna meet him—like, to see if I should vote for him, or whatever.”

That’s what makes Jones agree, smile a little fond. “Yeah, okay,” he says, “I’ll call him or something later. He’s bad at answering texts.” 

“Texting adults feels wrong,” Toni says. “My grandpa texts like he’s writing an essay.”

Sweet Pea laughs, “My brother’s somewhere between texting like an adult and texting like a normal person. Like, he uses punctuation _and_ emojis.”

“My dad uses emojis in, like, the wrong context—used them,” Jones corrects. No cell phones in jail.

“Thank god my grandpa doesn’t try to use them,” Toni says before the mood can drop at the reminder of FP’s ongoing prison stint. The conversation moves along smoothly, and Sweet Pea forgets about the Keller drama all together. He hopes Fangs does, too. 

So Jones texts Andrews’ dad and they get the go ahead to haul the bike across town in the back of Sweet Pea’s car that Friday afternoon. “This better be the last time I drive you anywhere for at least two weeks,” Sweet Pea tells him. Jughead says, “Yeah, whatever,” which Sweet Pea chooses to take as agreement. He can always just drive away if the guy tries to get in. (He also chooses to ignore the fact that he knows he’d just let him in anyways.)

Sweet Pea feels weird driving his brother’s old pick up down the fancy suburb streets—all the houses look almost exactly the same, and they’re like, annoyingly big. Not as big as Mantle’s place—or Blossom’s place—but some of their driveways could fit Jones’ whole trailer. 

The Andrews' driveway isn’t quite that big, but he’s able to pull into it and somehow get the motorcycle down onto the concrete with room to spare. He thinks he sees the blinds in the window of the house next to them—Cooper’s place, he thinks—move a little, but he’s not sure.

He is sure they must look pretty suspicious—of course, the last time they were here, they had come to beat Andrews’ ass. He hopes no one decides to call the sheriff or some shit; they were invited here this time, thanks very much. Jones knocks on the front door even though Sweet Pea offered to just honk very loudly, ‘cause he said that would be rude, and his Mister A answers the door in a flannel over a t-shirt and pajama pants. 

“Hey there,” he says—to all of them, not just Jones, “Anyone want some snacks before we get started?” 

Sweet Pea’s need to snatch up anything that Andrews might’ve bought for himself outweighs his suspicion, and he says, “Sure,” at the same time Fangs says, “I’ll take some.” 

Fred Andrews tilts his head in the direction of the open door, “Haven’t gotten groceries in about a week, but help yourself to whatever’s left. Except for the broccoli—that’s for dinner later.”

He’s surprised when Jones doesn’t follow them—fucker’s always ready to take other people’s food—but he just says, “Bring out the Oreos! You still got Oreos, Mister A?”

Fred laughs, “Who do you think we are?”

Sweet Pea takes that as a yes. “Ask nicely and I’ll think about it,” he says to Jones, but he’s off to the kitchen with Fangs before the guy can answer. 

It feels kinda weird just… letting themselves into their house, but he pushes the feeling down. It was weird walking into Riverdale High, but he got over it. He rummages through the pantry—big fuckin thing—and grabs the cheez-its, because they seem like something Andrews would eat. 

“I’m gonna finish all of these,” he tells Fangs, who knocks shoulders with him and says, “You’re a dick. You think the fruit loops are his, too?”

“Probably.”

Fangs takes the fruit loops. And grabs the Oreos for Jones, because he’s a much nicer friend than Sweet Pea is. And also Sweet Pea is carrying a soda in his other hand, for Toni—she likes Dr Pepper—so he obviously can’t carry anything else. He guesses Andrews must not be home yet, ‘cause no one comes down to see what all the noise is. Almost a shame, he thinks. He would’ve loved to finish the box right in front of him. 

By the time they get back outside, Fred is crouched down next to the bike with his flannel sleeves rolled up. Jones is crouched down next to him, and nodding along to whatever he’s saying, even thought Sweet Pea’s pretty sure he has no idea what the guy’s talking about. 

“So what’s the verdict?” Fangs asks, throwing back a handful of fruit loops. He’s always been friendlier with new people than Sweet Pea ever has. Probably helps that Jones always talks the guy up so much.

Fred Andrews glances up at them, face open and inviting. “Oil change,” he says pleasantly, “I think.”

“You think?” Sweet Pea raises an eyebrow, ignoring the look Jones shoots him. 

Fred just shrugs, “Either that or there’s something wrong with the ignition, and I’m way less qualified to fix that. We’re gonna try the one I know how to handle and go from there.”

“Cool,” Fangs says, jumping up into the open bed of Sweet Pea’s truck next to Toni, who’s propped her head up on the side to watch. 

“We’re crossing our fingers,” Toni says, lifting her hand up to demonstrate. “Are those fruit loops?”

Fangs holds the box up for her to take some, and scoots closer to make room for Sweet Pea to sit next to him. Fred watches the interaction fondly—which is weird, considering he, like, just met them. He shifts under his gaze a little, oddly self conscious. 

“Did you bring the Oreos?” Jones asks eagerly, leaning back to see them over Fred’s shoulder. Fangs holds them up triumphantly, and Jones is on them before Sweet Pea can try to tell him he can’t have any. 

“Thank you,” he says gratefully, leaning back against the truck to pull an oreo apart. 

“Why don’t you ever thank me like that,” Sweet Pea grumbles.

“‘Cause Fangs is nicer to me than you are.”

“He is,” Toni agrees, reaching over Jones shoulder to grab a few of the cookies. 

“So? I drive your ass everywhere,” he suddenly remembers where they are, “Sorry,” he says to Fred, reflexively.

Fred waves him off with the wrench in his hand. “You really should thank people for giving you rides,” he says to Jones, mostly teasing. Jones actually looks embarrassed about it—shit, he should’ve complained to his _Mister A_ about it sooner. 

Jones tilts his head back to glance at Sweet Pea as best he can. “Thanks for driving me to school, I guess,” he says.

“And to the prison.”

Jones sighs. “And to the prison.”

“And to the—”

“Alright, I get it,” he interrupts, waving an oreo at him—and then holds it out to him, “Take my peace offering.”

Fangs takes the peace offering on Sweet Pea’s behalf. 

“I think I can change the oil today,” Fred says, bringing them back to the matter at hand, “Just so you don’t have to leave the… bike here overnight. Or drive it across town again.”

“You just have the stuff to do that?” Sweet Pea asks dubiously, “Like, in your garage.”

Fred huffs a laugh, shakes his head, “I’ll have to go get a few things.”

Jones swallows his oreo down quick and shakes his head, “We can go get them—you don’t have to spend anything on this.”

Fred’s face softens a little, “Jug,” he says, “I don’t mind.”

Jones looks as uncomfortable as Sweet Pea feels. “Are you sure? You really don’t have to.”

“We can just pool money,” Sweet Pea adds, ‘cause it’s not like they need _Mister A_ to do something else for them. 

“I got paid yesterday,” Toni agrees.

Fred’s expression does something complicated and delicate; he pushes himself to his feet, sighing in that way that older people do when they’ve been sitting for too long, “Don’t worry about it,” he says, oddly careful, “You kids don’t have to pay for it—I did say I’d play mechanic.”

Sweet Pea pushes down the flare of reflexive irritation that comes with the way he says _you kids._ It reminds him of the way he asked about Jones back in the prison waiting room, and the way he said he’d actually consider the southside in his stupid mayoral policies—which he hasn’t even won yet, by the way. Sweet Pea beat him to the win. 

“Whatever,” he says, turning his attention back to finishing Andrews’ cheez-its. Toni elbows him lightly. He elbows her back.

“Okay,” Jones says softly, and Sweet Pea doesn’t have to look at him to know he’s pushing an oreo back and forth in the package instead of looking up at Fred. 

Sweet Pea watches Fred wipe his hands on his jeans, “I should be back in half an hour or so.”

“You’re going right now?” Jones asks.

“Said I’d get it done today, didn’t I?” Fred asks, smiling a bit; if Sweet Pea tries hard enough, he can almost see what FP’s so obsessed with him for. If he was half as fucking sincere in high school, FP probably ate that shit up. “You kids can wait inside, if you’d like.”

“Sure,” Toni answers for them, sliding off the edge of the truck bed. “Don’t want anyone to get suspicious.” 

Sweet Pea snorts, “Report us for loitering or something.”

“Do you have cable?” Fangs asks. Instead of getting annoyed or something, Fred just nods.

“Jug can show you; he helped install it.”

“I just held a flashlight,” Jones whispers, and Fangs laughs. 

Sweet Pea locks the truck before he follows the others inside. Again, he wouldn’t appreciate getting robbed in the suburbs. They spend the next forty five minutes watching a rerun and a half of Zack and Cody. 

“You so look like an older version of those little shits,” Toni says to Jones, who scrunches his nose up.

“I don’t see it,” Jones says. 

“Me either,” says Fangs.

“I kinda see it,” Sweet Pea says. “Like, in the nose.” 

“And the eyes.” Toni adds.

“We don’t even have the same hair color,” Jones says.

“Yeah,” Fangs agrees, “Completely different hair.”

“Whatever,” Toni says, “Let’s talk about how their mom was definitely a lesbian.”

“I _do_ see that one.” 

“It’s the bad biker hair,” Fangs nods.

Andrews gets home about thirty minutes in. He’s very loud about it—fumbles with the front door handle like he’s never opened a door in his life and shuts it so hard behind him they can hear it from the living room.

“Hey dad?” He yells, “Why’s Sweet Pea’s truck in our… driveway.” 

He trails off when he sees the four of them on his couch. 

“Hey, Arch,” Jones says, raising a hand to wave at him.

Andrews waves back. “Hey… guys.”

“Why do you know what my truck looks like?” Sweet Pea asks.

“Uh, ‘cause I see it everyday?” 

“Your bumper is dented to hell,” Toni reminds him, “And it’s bright red. It’s a recognizable truck.”

“Yeah, well, I still think it’s weird.” 

Andrews seems to contemplate whether or not he should get offended, and seems to decide against it. “Why’s Jug’s bike here? Is dad helping you fix it?”

“Yeah,” Jones says, “He went to go get some stuff to change the oil.” 

“Cool,” Andrews says, and then seems to hesitate on what to do next. In his own house. Honestly, Sweet Pea’s surprised he didn’t immediately try to kick them out—try, because he wouldn’t actually be able to get them out the door by himself. Maybe, he thinks for the hundredth time, rich bitches really can change. Weird. 

“We’re watching Disney reruns,” Jones offers, taking pity on the guy.

Andrews’ face lights up, “Sick,” he says, and drops his backpack on the floor to join them. Sweet Pea doesn’t scoot over to make room, but Jones and the others do, and Andrews ends up pressed between Jones and the arm of the couch. Fangs takes one for the team and slides down onto the floor, propping himself up against Sweet Pea’s legs. Which does not make him feel some type of way, thanks. 

The credits roll on the episode, and Andrews glances over at the sound of Sweet Pea scraping the bottom of the box for the last of the cracker bits. He’s done it; he’s finished the box. And they hadn’t even fixed the bike yet.

“Are those… my cheez-its?” Andrews asks, voice oddly small.

Sweet Pea looks him dead in the eye, “Yeah. What about it?”

Andrews is saved by the bell—his dad is swinging the front door shut and doing that thing that people in movies do where they say, “I’m home,” so loud it echoes through the house.

Sweet Pea can hear Jones quietly consoling Andrews: “It’s okay, dude, we can go get you some more after the bike is fixed.”

“They had plenty of what I needed in stock,” Fred announces, like he won the lottery or something. 

“Yay,” Fangs says, actually managing to sound enthusiastic,

“Thank god,” Sweet Pea says. 

“Hey, Arch,” Fred greets his son, “Why’s your backpack in the middle of the hallway?”

Andrews scrambles to pick it up faster than Sweet Pea’s seen the guy move since their last game. “Sorry, dad,” he says, and he sounds much more sorry about it than he should be. Jones had mentioned Fred’s legs giving out a few times while he was recovering; Sweet Pea can respect wanting to keep it from happening again. 

Fred ruffles his carrot top hair on his way out, and spends a few moments watching him stumble up the stairs. Sweet Pea quietly supposes that almost bleeding to death would probably make you wistful about shit like that. 

He finally turns to the rest of them, “It’ll take me another hour or so to actually change it," he says, “You can keep watching your TV if you’d like.”

Jones stands up and wipes his hand on his jeans the same way Fred had earlier, “I’ll help,” he says, “if you, like, need it.”

Fred smiles, “Sure,” he says, “I can teach you some things.”

“Wow,” Jones says, “Very big upgrade from holding a flashlight.”

“I’ll come, too,” Toni says, “It’d be nice to know how to do it so I don’t have to take mine in next time.”

Fangs decides to follow them out, so of course Sweet Pea goes, too. The two of them pile back into the bed of the truck while the other three crouch down around the bike again. 

After a few minutes of scrolling through his phone, he can’t help but listen to whatever Fred is saying—there’s not much else to listen to. When it gets too hard to understand without the visuals, he slides off the trunk so he can get a better view. Fangs follows, curious. If Fred restarts his explanation for them, nobody mentions it.

Sweet Pea spends the next hour and fifteen minutes listening to Fred Andrews teach them how to change the oil on a motorcycle. Andrews stomps out onto the driveway about five minutes in and spends the rest of that hour and fifteen minutes taking turns handing things to his dad. When Jones finally revs the damn thing up for the first time in months, he finds himself getting, like, really fucking excited with the rest of them. It kinda feels like he did something, even though all he personally did was watch. Fred tells them all Great Job, even though he was the only one who did any work. 

Fred asks them if they wanna stay for dinner, but Sweet Pea declines—politely, of course. He doesn’t think he’s quite ready to spend that much time in the same non-school building as Andrews just yet. Mantle’s party had already been pushing it. 

Fred wishes them all a very good night, and tells them that they’re welcome to come to him again if they have any more “truck or bike related problems”. Sweet Pea tells him “sure,” and he actually thinks he might mean it. Fangs tells him that he’s definitely got his vote. Toni and Jones just tell him thank you like normal people.

All in all, not the best way he could’ve spent a Friday evening. But, he supposes, watching Andrews balance on the bike behind Jones so they can go to the grocery store like he promised, not quite the worst way, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no i dont know anything about motorcycles. no i wont do any research. yes i will still click post.
> 
> drop a comment to help me get the next chapter out in less than 2 months this time and come vibe w me on [tumblr](http://gaycinema.tumblr.com/)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sweet Pea is suddenly uncomfortable, and aware of how uncomfortable he is; he turns to fiddle with his backpack, half shoved into his locker, so that he doesn’t somehow project his discomfort all over the room and out himself through his vibes or something. 
> 
> “I guess,” he says, noncommittal. Casual. He’s had enough practice talking to his brother about how no, he’s not dating Toni and he’s never going to be, and no, there’s isn’t any Girl with a capital G in his life, yet. “She’s just—not really my type.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah ik it's been 5 months........sorry lol. this chapter is basically 9k words of sweet pea having a crisis set to britney spears' baby one more time on repeat. hope u enjoy

If Sweet Pea had known that winning the student council election would make him more “approachable,” he never would’ve said yes to the idea in the first place. 

He’s had about enough of people, like, talking to him—people here meaning rich kids he does not know—and asking him things. He doesn’t really care so much about all the finer details of rules and what Toni calls “policy,” so he pretty much defers all of that fun stuff to her. 

Some random girl comes up to him after the chemistry class they both have and asks him if he knows when the prom is gonna be yet—which, no, he does not. Isn’t there supposed to be a committee for that or something? 

“I don’t know,” he says, trying not to sound, like, rude about it, “Go ask Toni.”

He wonders if prom really is his job, or if—”that girl was totally tryna flirt with you, dude,” Reggie tells him at practice later, because Reggie might also be in that class. 

“By asking about prom?” Sweet Pea asks, “That’s how people flirt here?”

Reggie shrugs, “I mean, you are president now.”

“I didn’t think it was that big of a deal here.”

“I don’t think it usually is,” Andrews pipes up from his locker, “But this year has been way different than usual.”

Polite way of saying a kid was murdered by his dad last summer and now there’s an entire new school’s population here. 

“Chicks dig bad boys, man,” Reggie says, and Sweet Pea kind of regrets “bro” bonding with him at his party. “And Heather’s pretty cute.”

Sweet Pea is suddenly uncomfortable, and aware of how uncomfortable he is; he turns to fiddle with his backpack, half shoved into his locker, so that he doesn’t somehow project his discomfort all over the room and out himself through his vibes or something. 

“I guess,” he says, noncommittal. Casual. He’s had enough practice talking to his brother about how no, he’s not dating Toni and he’s never going to be, and no, there’s isn’t any Girl with a capital G in his life, yet. “She’s just—not really my type.”

“Whatever, man,” Reggie says, “If I was president, you know I’d be all over that.”

“Yeah, well, you aren’t,” Sweet Pea reminds him, steering the conversation away from the girl thing, “”Cause I beat your ass.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Reggie grumbles, slamming his locker shut, and Sweet Pea finally feels like he can breathe again.

That annoying, uncomfortable not-really-able-to-breathe feeling is back the next day. It’s a Thursday, so Ace’s shift doesn’t start ‘til later than usual and he made Chef Boyardee, the ravioli this time. 

“Congrats on the win, man,” Ace says, scraping the rest of the ravioli into Sweet Pea’s bowl. 

“Yeah, you already said that,” Sweet Pea says, sitting in the chair on the scratched up side of the table—back during Sweet Pea’s initiation, he wasn’t super good at like, getting Hot Dog to not jump up onto the table; they’d never had room for a dog before. They tried to paint over it, but they bought the wrong color in a size too small to paint the whole thing, so now you can totally tell where the scratches are even though they tried to fix it. He still gets kinda embarrassed when he thinks about it, so he tries not to let Ace see it all the time. 

When his brother turns to put the pot in the sink, Sweet Pea reaches across the table to switch their bowls. He knows Ace always puts more in Sweet Pea’s, even though he definitely needs it more since he’s about to go work all night. 

“I texted it to you,” Ace says, “Now I’m sayin’ it in person.”

Ace has been real busy at work lately, ever since the whole schools merging thing happened. Driving across town everyday takes a little more gas than usual, and rent’s gone up. Rent’s gone up.

Sweet Pea shrugs. “Yeah, well, it’s just some rich kid shit. We mostly just thought it’d be funny to run.” 

“And then you won! Never woulda had the guts at your age,” Ace grins, and Sweet Pea’s sure he’s lying—he’s always had the guts for anything and everything, ever since Sweet Pea can remember. “Figure it’s worth celebratin’.” 

“Boyardee’s counts as a celebration?” 

“He’s a famous chef, show some respect,” his brother grins at him, all conspiratorial in that way that used to make Sweet Pea feel grown up when he was younger. 

Sweet Pea looks down and picks at his food, oddly embarrassed. “Thanks, I guess.” 

“I’m serious, Sweets,” his brother sounds a little more serious, now, and that somehow makes it harder to look at him, “It’s a pretty big deal at your new school, right? That’ll look real good on your transcript.”

Sweet Pea hasn’t even thought about that. He hasn’t really thought about things like transcripts or college, because for a while he was pretty sure he just wasn’t gonna go. Still isn’t sure if he’s gonna go. 

“Yeah,” he agrees automatically, “I guess it will, huh.”

His brother raises an eyebrow, “You didn’t even think about that, did you.”

Sweet Pea huffs, now kind of overtly embarrassed, “Course I did.”

“Sure,” his brother says, and Sweet Pea realizes how much he’s missed having dinner with him. He feels like he hasn’t seen him in forever. 

And it’s nice to see him, and to have him be proud of him, and it’s safe and easy as it always is until Ace says something about how easy it’ll be for him to get a girlfriend, now, huh, and if he’s got a crush on anyone yet, what with a whole school’s worth of new girls. 

It’s not that he's pushy about it, he never is, it’s just something that he brings up a little too much for Sweet Pea’s taste. He knows what his brother was like in high school, has heard stories about what a badass lady killer his big brother was, and he knows he’s not, like, living up to that standard. Not that Ace has ever cared about that, but sometimes Sweet Pea wonders what that says about him, because he’s always wanted to be just like his brother, and in this he’s totally different, and sometimes he’s afraid that Ace will stop and think about how the only girlfriend Sweet Pea ever had was in grade five and he hasn’t had one since and just… know. Make connections, or whatever. 

“Um,” Sweet Pea says, and then thinks back to the locker room yesterday and Reggie’s annoying ass voice, “There's this girl in my chem class that seems pretty into me.”

Ace raises an eyebrow, “You’re taking chem this year? God, I hated that shit.” 

The conversation moves on from girls to how god awful his chem teacher is and how math sucks, and Sweet Pea can’t help but be grateful. 

Sweet Pea totally gets the problem with deciding to make out at a party or the locker room at school and how being walked in on is kinda something they had coming, but Jones’ trailer? His trailer, that he’s currently the only one living in? Come on. 

When Sweet Pea hears the trailer door swing open after a quick knock and feels Jones pull away, he prays to the lord above to give him the strength to not beat Andrews’ ass for still not learning his lesson on knocking.

Instead of Carrot Top standing in the little living room when he looks up, though, it’s—

“Fangs,” Jones says, practically jumping off of Sweet Pea’s lap, sounding embarrassed. “Hey.” 

Sweet Pea, for his part, is kind of frozen, stuck in a weird limbo of not being able to look at his best friend and not being able to _not_ look at him. 

“Hey,” Fangs answers, voice slow and hesitant. A little confused, maybe, but not Andrews-level ridiculously shocked. 

Sweet Pea dares to look up, and catches Fangs’ eyes immediately. He does look surprised, and maybe a little embarrassed, eyes flitting down to Sweet Pea’s jacket, which is on the couch, and Sweet Pea’s shirt, which is probably all messy now that Jones got his fidgety hands all over it, and back up to his face. Sweet Pea hopes his face isn’t burning at much as he feels like it is—old people talk about heartburn all the time, and Sweet Pea wonders if it feels anything like this. 

“I didn’t know you—that you guys,” Fangs stutters for a moment, and there’s something else in his voice that Sweet Pea’s never heard before and it makes something in ache, and some other part of him terribly afraid. “I’ll just—I’m sorry, I’ll totally go,” he takes a step back towards the door. 

“Did you, like, need anything?” Jones asks, still sounding a little embarrassed. 

Fangs shakes his head quickly, “No, no, don’t worry—it’s just some homework thing, I’ll ask Toni.” 

“I can…” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Fangs smiles a little, something reassuring; he seems to have recovered a little from the shock, even if he can’t seem to keep his eyes on Sweet Pea for more than a few seconds at a time.

“Is it about the chem homework?” Jones asks. When Fangs nods, he makes a shooing gesture with his hand, “Yeah, take that to Toni, man.”

Fangs huffs a little laugh, and glances at Sweet Pea again. Pauses like he’s waiting for him to say something, and Sweet Pea suddenly realizes he hasn’t said a thing this whole time. He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. He’s afraid he’ll say something he’ll regret and ruin it all. 

“I won’t tell anyone, if you don’t want me to,” he says this directly to Sweet Pea, achingly genuine and solemn in a way he’s only seen a few times. “I promise.”

Sweet Pea still can’t seem to say anything, everything caught in his chest, so Jones answers for them both. “Thanks, Fangs,” he says, quiet but equally firm. 

Sweet Pea nods in agreement. Something ripples through Fangs’ expression, maybe relief or maybe disappointment, or maybe Sweet Pea just can’t read him as well as he used to. 

Fangs seems to take that as the end of this extremely uncomfortable conversation, and says something quick goodbyes, a few nervous-slash-reassuring smiles, and then dips. 

Sweet Pea still cannot exhale. As soon as the door swings shut, he feels like he’s collapsing, pitching forwards and grounding his elbows on his knees, but he can’t breathe out. 

“Shit,” he says. God, he wishes it had been Andrews again. Fucking Andrews, cant even be reliable and consistent enough to be the one to walk in on them again. “Shit.”

“Sweet Pea,” Jughead says, voice soft and hesitant in a way it usually isn’t. He doesn’t seem to know what to say. 

“I totally thought it was Andrews again,” Sweet Pea finally manages to say, and it startles a laugh out of Jones. 

“Wouldn’t’ve been surprised.” 

Sweet Pea tries to laugh, but can’t quite manage it. “Shit.”

“He’s not gonna, like, judge you,” Jughead says, “You know he won’t.”

Sweet Pea does know that. He’s mostly just afraid of—he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know what he’s afraid of. Things changing? Fangs looking at him different? Fangs putting two and two together and figuring it out? The idea of Fangs knowing freaks him out and it shouldn’t, because Fangs literally just got out of a relationship with the sheriff’s kid so he has no room to talk about taste or preferences or anything and he wouldn’t to begin with. 

“I know,” Sweet Pea agrees. “I’m just—god. He knows, now. He might figure it out.” 

Jones doesn’t say anything for a moment. “Would it be so bad if he did?”

Sweet Pea just gives him a Look, because really? Jones is gonna preach to him about admitting his feelings about anything? 

“Like you’d ever tell Andrews shit.” 

Jughead frowns, but doesn’t retaliate like he would have a few months ago. “I’m just saying.” 

“Well, stop it.” 

Jughead huffs, and falls back onto the couch next to him. There’s a pause, where Sweet Pea breathes deeply and he feels Jones knock a knee against his. 

“He’s not gonna look at you any different,” he says softly, “It’s Fangs. You could probably kill someone and he’d, like, immediately back you up.” 

Sweet Pea can’t argue with that; they’ve been planning an elaborate bank heist since age thirteen, ever since they watched that magician movie with that guy from that Facebook movie in it and decided to try and top it. 

He doesn’t answer, but Jughead seems to take that as an agreement. 

“You wanna get dinner or something? Stressful situations always make me hungry afterwards.”

Sweet Pea snorts, “What, like the adrenaline rush?”

Jughead nods, “Zaps all my energy. You don’t wanna know how much I racked up on my tab at Pop’s when my dad lost the house.”

He says it like a joke, so Sweet Pea reacts to it like one. Rolls his eyes a little. Decides to push down the ball of complicated feelings in his stomach and says, “Fine. You’re paying.” 

He’ll talk to Fangs the next time he sees him, he swears to himself. He’ll talk to him, and everything will be fine. 

Fangs won’t tell anyone, and they’ll talk, and it’ll all be fine. 

They do not talk about it. At least, not right away. 

It feels even worse than that time Sweet Pea walked in on him and Keller in the locker room that one time and then had to listen to him talk about it, because at least then Fangs had been talking and Sweet Pea was there to listen, no matter how much it annoyed him. Not that Sweet Pea has any desire to, like, _talk_ to Fangs about him and Jones’ various back-seat-of-his-truck make out sessions, but the point still stands. 

He had thought Fangs would come to him, like he did when he and Keller both got together and broke up, but he doesn’t. Which means he expects Sweet Pea to approach him about it first, which, for all his posturing and badass persona that he’s built for himself, is not something he’s very good at. At least when it comes to emotional shit like this; he’s good at starting fights, not deep vulnerable conversations—shouldn’t Fangs know that at this point? 

By the time Sweet Pea has realized he’s gonna have to take the first step here, it’s already been a few days. And then it feels weird to bring it up, because nothing has changed. Fangs hasn’t really been acting different around him like Sweet Pea was afraid he would, and that’s a good thing, right? So it’s actually all good, and they don’t need to talk about it. 

“I think you should probably talk about it, dude,” Jughead says, even though absolutely no one asked for his opinion. 

“What, like you and Andrews talked about it?”

“Yeah, actually,” Jones says, sounding all smug about it, “I am the one who convinced him not to say anything. And had to deal with the aftermath of him walking in on us three separate times.”

Sweet Pea scoffs, “I thought you just guys communicated with really intense eye contact.”

“Not always,” he doesn’t take the bait, “Sometimes we do, y’know, have actual grown up conversations about shit.” 

Sweet Pea doesn’t take the bait, either. Ugh, they’ve gotten too comfortable around each other. He misses the days where they could avoid anything deeper than surface level shit by starting an argument about something else. He sighs. 

“Fangs isn’t like Andrews.” 

“Obviously—Fangs actually acknowledges the fact that he’s bi.” 

“And that’s cool for him,” Sweet Pea agrees, “but it’s not—I can’t.” 

“...Acknowledge the fact that you’re bi?” 

“No—yes? I don’t know.” 

“If you’re bi?”

“Oh my god,” Sweet Pea says, “I’m not” 

Jones blinks at him; Sweet Pea blinks back. 

“I’m not… and I’m not… I mean, I know I’m not, y’know, straight.” 

“Obviously.” 

“But I can’t just…” Sweet Pea ignores him, “it’s different for me. I can’t just—and now he knows. And I know he won’t tell anyone, but I didn’t want him to know.”

“Why not?” Jones asks carefully, voice annoyingly soft. 

“Because he’ll be able to tell that I—” that I like him, he can’t say, that I want him. “Cause Fangs isn’t like Andrews, he’s not fucking oblivious. And you figured it out, and so did Cheryl, and so will he. And so will—what if my brother does, too? What if my brother does.” 

Jughead is very still for a moment. Sweet Pea can hear the sound of his own breathing and his fast his heart is beating, and that’s actually all he can hear, and he didn’t mean to get so worked up and now Jones totally has blackmail material because he’s being such a baby about it and what would his brother think and what will his brother think?

“Hey,” someone is saying—Jughead is saying, and there’s a hand on his shoulder, long fingers, “Sweet Pea, hey.” 

_What?_ he wants to snap and shake his hand off, but he can’t. 

“You’re okay,” Jughead says, sounding so incredibly uncertain it almost makes Sweet Pea laugh. “You’re good, just—just breathe, dude. In and out.” 

He wants to say I know how to fucking breathe, but instead he decides to listen to him for once. He grabs at Jughead’s wrist; notices vaguely that his hands are shaking. 

“There you go,” Jughead says, trying for encouraging and only half-succeeding. Still, Sweet Pea listens to him, because his breath is finally evening out and his heartbeat isn’t so loud in his ears. “Are you okay?” 

Sweet Pea swallows. Takes a sec to get his shit together. 

“Yeah,” he says, oddly embarrassed, and has to glance away, “Yeah. Sorry.”

Jones pats his shoulder a few times—Sweet Pea lets go of his wrist when he realizes he’s still holding it—and draws back. “It’s all good. Everyone needs a good freak out every once in a while.” 

Sweet Pea rolls his eyes, mostly to try and feel a little more like himself.

“Yeah, whatever,” he grumbles, and runs a hand through his hair. 

There’s a moment or two of silence, where Sweet Pea tries to remember what it’s like to not feel like you’re choking full-time and Jughead is probably deciding what to say. 

“Your, um, your brother,” Jughead starts, voice cautious. 

“What about him,” Sweet Pea answers flatly. 

Jughead, as fucking usual, decides not to take the hint and leave it alone, “You guys are close, right?”

Sweet Pea shrugs, “Yeah, I guess. I mean, he pretty much raised me by himself.” 

Jughead nods, digesting this. “Is he…?”

“A homophobe?” Sweet Pea finishes for him, “No.”

“Then why not tell him?”

“It’s just—it’s different. There’s a difference between, like, being cool with it hypothetically, and being cool with it if it’s someone you know.” 

“What about my dad?” Jones asks, because of course he does. 

“He’s been a serpent since he was fifteen; he’s not gonna judge FP fuckin Jones. But that’s—“

“Different?” Jones guesses, all annoying. 

“Yeah. He’s always asking if I have a girlfriend.” And then, because he and Jones have enough dirt on each other that a little bit more doesn’t matter, “I don’t want him to stop loving me.” 

Jughead looks down at the table. Hums a little, like he gets it—and maybe he does, with Andrews and with his dad who’s still in jail—and doesn’t seem to know what to say to that. 

Sweet Pea rubs at his eyes, and doesn’t take it personally. 

There’s a shift in the dynamic, or whatever; a weird tension at the lunch table or at the quarry. It’s not, like, obvious if you don’t know what you’re looking for, and Sweet Pea is trying his absolute fucking best to ignore it, but sometimes he goes to throw an arm over Fangs shoulder or Fangs goes to shove him, and there’s this… this pause. A moment of hesitation that’s never been there before, not with Fangs. Never with Fangs.

Sometimes Sweet Pea catches his eye, and isn’t sure whether he’s supposed to look away or not. Isn’t sure how he’s allowed to touch him, now. Isn’t sure how the fuck he’s supposed to behave. 

And it sucks—it sucks that it’s weird, now, that’s he’s making it weird. Because it’s probably him, right? Nothing changed when Fangs came out—Sweet Pea made sure that nothing changed. But it’s different now; maybe because it’s him, maybe because Fangs knows now, knows about… about it. About him. It feels like it’s been weeks since he was able to relax, even though it’s only been about one since Fangs walked in on them. 

Of course Toni notices. Toni notices everything. 

“What’s up with you and Fangs?” she asks one day after school, cleaning a glass behind the bar at the Wyrm. Blunt and to the point as usual. 

His hackles rise immediately. “Nothing. What do you mean?”

Toni just looks at him, unimpressed. “You know what I’m talking about.”

“No I don’t,” Sweet Pea says stubbornly, throwing back some of the unfortunately non-alcoholic orange juice Toni poured him earlier.

“Sweets, for real. You guys have been acting weird lately. Did something happen?”

Her voice has gotten soft in that way it only ever does for them—and now Blossom, unfortunately.

Sweet Pea sighs, closing his eyes. He’s never been good at lying to Toni.

“I don’t know. I guess so.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I just—he saw,” he props his elbows on the counter, palms against his eyes; he’s suddenly exhausted, and this is Toni, and he’s known her for years and this is Toni, and so he sighs and says, “He _saw_. Me and—me and Jones. Fangs, he—I think I’m gay.” 

He hears Toni freeze, hears the steady sound of her towel against the glass she was cleaning stop for a moment. He holds his breath. Toni unfreezes; a clink of glass against wood as she sets it down. 

“Jughead?” is what she says, sounding bemused, “Jughead Jones is the guy you pick to experiment with?”

That makes Sweet Pea snort, lifting his head from his hands and blinking out the spots behind his eyelids, and he forgets he was ever nervous about her. 

“The rest of you assholes were busy with your new rich kids, what else was I supposed to do?” 

“I don’t know, you and Mantle had that intense, sort of rivalry thing going.” 

“Fuck off, that’s just basketball.” 

“With weird, aggressively repressed gay vibes.” 

“That’s just basketball,” he repeats, ‘cause he knows it’ll make Toni laugh. 

It does, but doesn’t distract her. 

“Y’know, I’m surprised I didn't figure it out myself. You and Jones have been spending a suspicious amount of time together lately.” 

“Again, who else was I supposed to hang out with?” 

She steadily ignores him. “So Fangs, what, caught you two… experimenting?”

“Ew, don’t call it that. But… yeah. Last week, at Jones’ trailer.” 

“And…?” 

“And what?”

Toni blinks. “That’s it?”

Sweet Pea blinks back, suddenly weirdly self conscious. “I mean, yeah.”

“That’s why you two are being so weird? It’s not like Fangs can say shit—didn’t you walk in on him and Keller?”

Sweet Pea frowns at the mention of that asshole. “Yeah, but. I don’t know, it’s different.”

“Because it’s Jones?”

“Because it’s _me_.”

Toni looks at him, with that serious look on her face that always makes him feel all open and easy to read as she searches his face for whatever she thinks she can find.

“Sweet Pea,” she says, voice firm, “What the fuck does that even mean?”

Despite himself, he laughs again, her words and tone so dissonant. She just frowns harder. 

“I don’t know,” he says, “It just… it’s different. It’s fine, with you and Fangs, and-and even Jones, but I’m not… I didn’t want anyone to know.” 

Toni stares at him for a very long moment. And then, carefully, “Is this about your brother?”

It throws him, for a moment, because they’re talking about Fangs, not his brother, and so he’s not ready to think about his non-heterosexuality and his brother at the same time.

Because of course it is. Of course it is.

“What?” is what he says, “No, it’s—no. Fuck off.” 

“Sweet Pea—“

“It’s not,” he insists, “I just—I didn’t want people to know. Everyone. Not just him.” 

“Foolin’ around with Jones isn’t exactly keeping it discrete. Especially not if Fangs just… walked in on you.” 

Sweet Pea crosses his arms at the reminder, staring down at his non-alcoholic orange juice. He wishes Toni had actually added the vodka he’d asked her to. 

“So I don’t want Ace to know—so what? It’s my business.” 

Toni sighs. “Sweets,” she starts, and pauses. Starts again, “Whatever happened with you and Fangs—you’re literally his best friend, even with your embarrassing crush. You know he doesn’t see you any different, right? No matter what happens with… with your brother, it won’t happen with Fangs.” 

Sweet Pea still doesn’t look at her. He doesn’t wanna see whatever soft ass expression will be there. He hates it when she’s like this—all wise and emotionally intelligent and shit. He would’ve thought dating Blossom would be affecting her mental stability negatively, but whatever. 

“It already is,” he says, and he hates how small his voice sounds, so he clears his throat. “It’s already different. And if-if Fangs is treating me different, then what will—?”

 _What will my brother do?_ he can’t bring himself to say. _How will my brother treat me? Will he stop touching me, too?_

Toni knows what he means, of course. She always seems to. She takes a moment to, like, consider. Or maybe she’s just giving him a moment. 

“Just talk to him,” she finally says, “Fangs, I mean. You don’t have to tell Ace anything if you don’t want to. But you gotta fix your shit with Fangs—and I mean that in the nicest way possible.” 

“I don’t _have_ to do anything,” he mumbles, fidgeting with his cup. 

Toni shoots him a look, and suddenly the tension is lifted. They drop the Ace subject and move on; he should tell Toni how much he appreciates her more often. 

“It’ll make you feel better,” she says. “And it’ll make lunch less awkward. I’m this close to asking Jones to invite Andrews over more often, just to spice things up again.”

“Gross, don’t do that,” he says immediately. The last thing he needs to deal with on the daily is him and Jones’ heavy eye contact and weird flirting on top of everything else he has going on. 

“Then fucking talk to Fangs. Please. You’re throwing the vibe off.” 

That makes him crack a smile, even if it also makes him roll his eyes. “Only if you never say that again.” 

Toni huffs a laugh, picking the glass she was cleaning back up to continue. “Fine. But you and Ricky have to stop calling Hot Dog an absolute unit.”

“I can’t make Ricky do anything.” 

“Then stop calling my girlfriend ‘that evil red queen chick from Alice in Wonderland’.”

“That was one time, and she was totally dressed like her.”

“How? Her shirt had a single heart on it.”

“Uh, and a crown?” 

“And it reminded you of _Alice in Wonderland?”_

“Hello? Queen of hearts? It’s not my fault they read it to us a bunch of times in elementary school.” 

They go back and forth like that for a while, until Sweet Pea can almost forget what they were talking about in the first place, and he finally feels himself relax for the first time in like a week. 

He really should tell Toni he appreciates her more often. 

This whole “Fangs walking in on them” thing seems to have kinda changed things with Jones, too. Sort of. Thrown off the vibe, like Toni said. 

It doesn’t feel as… relaxed? Casual? Easy? As it used to, and that annoys him, because he’d generally been liking how relaxed and casual and easy this whole thing was. But now it’s not, anymore, because every time he and Jones try to start something, he can’t not think about the last time they did this and how it ended, how Fangs’ had looked and sounded and how he still hadn’t gotten up the courage to talk to him about it yet. 

Which always makes him go kinda stiff, which makes Jughead stop and look at him weird, like he can read Sweet Pea’s mind or something. To be fair, he hasn’t exactly been very subtle about the whole thing. 

He feels kind of bad, since it’s mostly his fault for once; throwing off the mood had pretty much been all Andrews up until now. Which meant, by extension, pretty much all Jones’.

He’d probably feel worse if Jughead hadn’t been spending more and more times with Andrews, lately. Well, more and more compared to the short, painful conversations they’d been suffering through back at the beginning of the semester. 

Which, good for them, he guesses. It mostly makes him self aware of how weird things still are between him and Fangs. It’s like the earth’s balance has tilted—the more strained things get between him and Fangs, the better thinks get between Jones and Andrews. Those motherfuckers are stealing their vibes. 

“I think the earth’s balance has tilted or something,” he says to Jughead, both of them doing their “group work” in the back of the chem classroom that mostly means him and Jones coming up with bullshit answers based on whatever Jones finds in his quick google search with his phone under the desk, because both of them are shit at chem and their teacher doesn’t give a fuck. 

“Why’s that?” Jones answers, not looking up from his work. 

“‘Cause you and Andrews are communicating like actual people these days.”

Jones looks up to shoot him a very unimpressed look. “And you still haven’t talked to Fangs, huh?”

Sweet Pea scowls, but he is kinda the one who brought it up. If this means he subconsciously does want to talk about it or something, no it doesn’t. 

“Y’know, it’s gonna get weirder the longer you ignore it,” Jones says, like anyone asked for his opinion, “Like when you forget to text back and then it’s been too long, so you just never do.”

“Is that why you always leave me on read.”

“No, that’s just me ignoring you.”

“Asshole.”

“Point still stands. Soon you guys’ll end up like me and—“

“Don’t say it,” Sweet Pea cuts in, “Do not ever compare Fangs to Andrews. Or me to you.” 

Jughead doesn’t even look intimidated anymore—just raises his eyebrows, amused. Asshole. They seriously never should’ve let him join the gang. 

“You brought it up,” he points out, and he’s suddenly glad they’ve been spending less time together—even if that means he hasn’t been getting as much action—because he does not appreciate how easily Jones can follow his thought process. 

“Whatever. Mind your business, Jones.” 

“Do you want the answer for number nine or not?”

Sweet Pea sighs, defeated. He does want the answer for number nine. 

Toni and Jones are right about one thing: he does need to talk to Fangs. The problem is, Jones was also right about another thing: the longer they wait, the weirder it feels. If they weren’t being obvious about it before, they are now. Tragically, Toni was right about a third thing: the vibe is off.

He doesn’t think he can keep existing in this weird Fangs-less limbo for much longer. They’ve gone through worse shit than this; he doesn’t want this to somehow be the deal breaker. 

Problem is, he’s still too chicken shit to be the one to, like, initiate. He never claimed to _not_ be emotionally repressed. He keeps telling himself it’s just not the right time; he’ll say something when the opportunity arises.

He gets his chance at Saturday’s basketball game.

It’s a home game, so Toni and everyone come. Ace doesn’t, ‘cause he has a double shift again. Fangs does, of course; even when he and Keller were still a thing, he never missed any of Sweet Pea’s games.

It’s this little fun fact he’s thinking about, the fact that Fangs is here even though shit is weird between them because he hasn’t missed a game and won’t start now, when something slams into him. Something hard hits his side, somebody’s pointy ass elbow in his stomach, and then his foot gets knocked out from under him and the floor is suddenly hitting him right in the fucking face. He manages to twist at the last second, his arm shooting out to break his fault, but he feels his nose do that awful crunch thing it did the first time he got into a fight in school and his growth spurt hadn’t kicked in yet so he got his ass handed to him by some kid in the grade above him. His knee knocks hard against the gym floor, too, but nothing worse than that—no crunch, or crack, or anything else that would make him panic. 

“What the fuck,” he coughs, thankfully drowned out by the screech of the ref’s whistle. 

“Shit, dude,” he hears someone say, and then someone is touching his shoulder and pushing him up. “Are you okay?”

He blinks up at whoever was touching him, and of course it’s Andrews. 

Because it’s Andrews, and he’s in a bad fucking mood now that some rich kid tried their best to break his face, Sweet Pea spits out some of the blood that’s pooled in the back of his throat because of his probably-broken and now bloody nose and says, “Do I fucking look okay?”

Andrews only winces, sympathetic, “No. Is your nose broken?

Sweet Pea doesn’t get the chance to say _does it fucking look broken?_ before the coach is there and helping him up. 

“Damn, kid,” the coach says, looking him up and down, “He got you good.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

For once, the coach lets it slide, probably because he doesn’t manage to sound half as biting as he meant to, what with the blood clogging up his nose. He just pats him hard on the shoulder and says, as forcefully cheerful as he’s ever heard the guy, “You’ll live. Andrews, can you take him to the nurse?”

Andrews opens his mouth to answer, probably a very ass-kissy yes, but then there’s a different hand on his shoulder, and he hears Fangs say, “I got it,” before he even realizes it’s Fangs’ hand.

If his heart beats a little faster, no it doesn’t. 

Coach either doesn’t give a shit or is just happy to not be down two players, because he gives Fangs a very brief once over and dismisses them both with a nod. Andrews opens his mouth to say something else, but the coach tells him to get his ass back on the court, and so he wisely shuts his mouth and gets his ass back on the court. 

Sweet Pea goes to take a step, and hisses as his knee gives a very painful protest. 

“C’mon,” Fangs says, and helps swing Sweet Pea’s arm over his shoulder to steady him. He’s warm and solid underneath him, and he doesn’t even mind the way he has to bend down a little to lean on him. 

They make it out of the gym and into the locker room before Sweet Pea has to sit down—and only partially because of his skinned knee. It’s mostly just kind of overwhelming, not touching Fangs for almost two weeks and then suddenly being pressed up against him, full body, just so he can walk. 

Fangs helps him sit down, big hands all gentle, and says, “Don’t wanna go to the nurse?”

Sweet Pea shakes his head, “Don’t need to; I know what to do with a bloody nose.”

Fangs cracks a wry little smile, the first one Sweet Pea’s seen in a week and a half, “Yeah, you sure do. How many times’ve you broken your nose, do you think?”

“Only a few. I’m the one breaking other people’s noses.”

“Right, obviously,” he agrees; a pause, “Is your knee okay, though?”

Sweet Pea glances down at it; it’s a little fucked up, but only surface level. God knows what he would do if some rich kid asshole from two towns over jacked his knee up permanently. Probably key his car or something. Convince Toni's girlfriend to lend him the money to sue. 

“Yeah,” he says, “It’ll be fine. Just scraped up.”

“Are you sure? You hit it pretty hard,” Fangs says, sounding worried. 

For some bizarre and fucked up reason, that makes his heart do this weird little flutter thing. He clears his throat to get rid of it. “Yeah, it’s all good.”

Clearing his throat wasn’t his best move, though, because all that does is make him aware of the fact that his nose is still bleeding and that his mouth still tastes mostly like copper.

He must make a face, because Fangs says, “Hold on a sec,” and then sprints out of the room before Sweet Pea can answer.

Because his knee hurts and he’s not in the mood to, like, crawl to the nurse, he does, in fact, hold on a sec, fidgeting with the hem of his basketball shorts. Thirty seconds later, Fangs is back, clutching a big ass handful of paper towels, presumably from the bathroom. 

Sweet Pea watches, a little stunned, as Fangs goes through a few lockers until he finds someone’s unopened plastic water bottle, and swings his legs over the bench beside him, scooting much closer than he was before. 

“Um,” Sweet Pea says, watching Fangs dab some water onto one of the paper towels, “I think there’s a first aid kit in here somewhere.”

Fangs stops, and looks up at him, a little bashful. “Oh. Well, this was faster.”

This was definitely not faster, and it makes Sweet Pea smile. God, he misses Fangs.

Fangs sets the water bottle on the bench behind him. Instead of handing the now-wet paper towel to him like he expected, though, Sweet Pea’s breath catches in his throat at the sudden feeling of Fang’s fingers under his chin tilting his head up very carefully. He’s so caught off guard that he lets him do it, trying not to flinch at the feeling of the cool paper towel against his skin—which flushes warmer than it was before. Jesus. 

He leans back to brace his arm on the bench behind him, and Fangs follows. Sweet Pea hopes he isn’t actually breathing as loud as he feels like he is. It’s not like they’ve never cleaned each other up before—he’s the one who helped Fangs pick all the gravel out of his hands that time he fell of his bike—like his actual bicycle—and Fangs is the one who helped wrap his fingers up that time he cut them open with his own switchblade ‘cause he was trying to do some dumb trick with it. 

This is normal. It should be normal. So he does his best not to breathe too loudly and stay still and be cool; just because things have been weird doesn’t mean they aren’t still friends. Fangs is probably the only one who could get away with this in the first place. Maybe Toni, but Toni would make fun of him a lot first, so she’s not his first choice.

His must’ve bled a lot more than he thought he did, because it feels like they sit there for hours; Fangs takes his sweet fucking time with it, or maybe Sweet Pea’s dumb brain just makes it seem like it takes longer than it actually does. Fang’s fingers are warm against his face, and he’s close enough that Sweet Pea can see the flecks in his eyes, and he goes through three paper towels before he pulls back and declares Sweet Pea clean enough to hold his own paper towel. His gaze burns; or maybe that’s just Sweet Pea, running hot as his dumb heart races for no reason.

He takes the paper towel Fangs hands him; a few pink spots from Fangs’ fingers, still wet from the blood-stained wad he just set down. He presses it to his nose, which isn’t really bleeding anymore, just to have something to hide behind again.

He wonders if Fangs will leave now, and if things will resume being all strained and uncomfortable. Part of him hopes he will, so they won’t have to talk about things after all, even though he’s been waiting for the chance to fix their shit. God, he hates this. He wishes they never came to this stupid ass school to begin with. 

Fangs does not leave, though, because of course he doesn’t. But he doesn’t say anything either, and they both sit there for a second, waiting for something to happen.

One of them has to break first; Sweet Pea never claimed to be immune to Fangs’ stupid, sad little puppy dog eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says in a rush, feeling almost two weeks’ worth of held breath leave with it, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make shit weird. We shoulda just locked the door.”

Fangs blinks at him, eyes wide and incredulous, and he takes a moment before he says, “You don’t gotta apologize—I’m pretty sure I was the one making it weird. You were super cool about it when I came out, and I… I just wanted to say sorry. I don’t know why I... reacted like that.”

So Sweet Pea isn’t fucking crazy, and it wasn’t only him. And then what Fangs actually said sinks in, and his heart sinks, too. So he did react badly—to Sweet Pea being… to Sweet Pea.

“What d’you mean?” he asks, because he apparently hates himself, “Reacted like what?”

Fangs shrugs, running a hand through his hair; Sweet Pea notices, vaguely, that it’s gotten a little longer than he usually lets it grow. It looks nice.

“I don’t… I don’t really know how to explain it without sounding like an asshole.”

“Are you, like, mad at me or something?” He hates how pathetic he sounds, but the question comes before he can stop it.

“No,” Fangs says immediately, grabbing his hand the way he would whenever he got excited or scared or just generally happy, “Of course not. And I don’t—I mean, it’s not like I can judge you for not being straight.” If he notices the way Sweet Pea flinches, just a bit, he doesn’t say anything. “I’m just… being weird.”

“Okay,” Sweet Pea says, “That literally explains nothing at all.”

That, surprisingly, makes Fangs huff an embarrassed laugh. “I know, I’m sorry. It just… made me realize some stuff I’d never really thought about. And then I felt bad—for thinking about it, and for not thinking about it.”

Sweet Pea does not dare to consider what that might mean—what new “stuff” Fangs could’ve possibly realized after finding out Sweet Pea is… he cuts off that traitorous, embarrassing line of thought. 

He swallows. And, because he has zero self control or self respect anymore: “What kinda stuff?”

Fangs looks at him, eyes wide and not incredulous, anymore. He looks a little scared, actually, the same way Sweet Pea feels whenever he thinks about Fangs and his smile and the way he looks under those stupid neon lights and fucking aches. He holds his breath, and waits for Fangs to decide whether or not he wants to answer—how’s that for making the first move? 

It’s very quiet in here, he notices. He can hear muffled noise from the gym, whistles and cheering and the slap of the basketball against the floor, but other than that, it’s just him and Fangs and his stupid heart beating in his ears.

“I feel bad,” Fangs says, seeming very loud in the quiet of the locker room. “About Jones. I don’t wanna be, like, a homewrecker. But I just… I didn’t know that you… so you were never, y'know, an option, I guess. I could never let myself think of you as an option. But—”

Sweet Pea swears to god his heart stops beating for a second—one, because of whatever the fuck Fangs just implied, and two, because the locker room door slams open and hits the wall with a bang, shocking them both out of the bubble they’d made for themselves. They reflexively jump back a respectable, no homo amount of space apart on the bench as the team piles in. 

God, he thinks, how long had they spent making heavy, silent eye contact? _God_ , he thinks again, much more urgently, they really are acting like Jones and Andrews. Is the weird flirting gonna be next? The earth desperately needs to be un-tilted and put back on its proper axis, or he’s gonna lose his fucking mind. 

He’s pretty sure they won, since they’re all jumping around and yelling about how they won. The newest addition to their currently undefeated winning streak. Go team. 

Whatever serious mood they’d gotten into is broken now, and he somehow knows that they won’t get it back tonight. Weirdly, he finds he’s okay with that. He knows Fangs doesn’t, like, hate him or anything, and that he might… that he might _something_. Something like Sweet Pea does. Maybe. He tells himself not to get his hopes up, not to assume anything stupid, but he can’t help the light feeling in his chest, even though his knee still aches and his head is starting to hurt from hitting the gyn floor so hard. 

Fangs doesn’t hate him. He might even, possibly, kind of like him. 

That puts him in such a good mood that he doesn’t even complain about Mantle clapping him on the back and teasing him how hard he ate it earlier, and how he’s never seen a guy so tall hit the ground so fast—just says fuck you, Mantle, and leaves it at that. 

“You’re in a weirdly good mood,” Jones tells him the next day, legs dangling off of his trailer's kitchen counter. “Did you finally talk to Fangs?”

It takes literally everything he has not to smile like an idiot at the mere mention of the guy. God, he’s so far gone. 

“Maybe. But not ‘cause you told me to.”

“Of course not—it’s ‘cause Toni told you to.” 

“It’s ‘cause some rich kid tried to murder me in the middle of a basketball game. 

“He barely knocked you over.”

“He broke my nose.” 

“You almost broke mine, but you don’t see me complaining about it anymore.”

“That was months ago, asshole.”

Jones just shrugs, unapologetic. If he hadn’t spent enough time around him to know he was teasing, he’d totally almost break his nose again. 

“Whatever. I’m glad you guys fixed your shit.” 

And he does sound glad about it. Maybe a little too glad. 

He doesn’t think about it too hard, ‘cause then Jones’ microwave is beeping and he’s passing Sweet Pea his cup of noodle. On Sundays, Ace isn’t usually home till after Sweet Pea goes to bed, so he figured he might as well grace Jones with his company.

“Thanks,” he says offhand, and Jones actually whistles.

“Damn, you are in a good mood,” he says, “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say thank you without being threatened first. Did your talk with Fangs really go that good?”

Sweet Pea flips him off, oddly embarrassed. “I totally say thank you all the time—just not to you. Also, mind your business.”

“You made your business my business when you decided to put the moves on me.”

“Don’t call it that, weirdo.”

“Answer the question.”

“Why do you care so bad?”

“Uh, because I’ve had to sit at lunch with you guys for the past two weeks? And listen to you whine about it after school?”

Sweet Pea scoffs. “I don’t whine.”

“Complain in a very tough and manly way, then.”

Sweet Pea doesn’t deign to respond to that, choosing to take a very big bite of his ramen instead.

Jones, patiently, waits for him to finish before he says, “Dude. I just wanna know if lunch tomorrow is gonna be painful enough for Toni to ask me to invite Archie to sit with us again.”

“Oh my god, she was serious?”

Jones laughs, “I mean, probably. Lunch has been _painful_.”

Sweet Pea does actually feel kinda bad about that; he knows first hand how awful it is to sit through two people’s weird tension—he’s talking to Jones, after all. 

“Don’t invite Andrews,” he says, “Me n’ Fangs are good.”

Jones raises an eyebrow, like he didn’t actually expect to get an answer.

“Like, normal good? Or good good?”

“I mean… both? I guess?”

“Wow,” Jones says, actually sounding awed, “That’s… actually, I have no bitchy comment, that’s great.”

That makes Sweet Pea pause, the way a bit of genuine positive emotion from Jones always makes him. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I’m happy for you—mostly for Fangs, even though he could totally do way better.”

Sweet Pea kicks at his legs from where he sits at the little kitchen table, but Jones is sitting too far away for him to do much damage. 

“We aren’t actually, like, a thing,” he says, even as his heart kinda picks up at the idea. 

Jones gives him a look, like he can tell exactly what he’s thinking. 

“Well, do you wanna be?” he asks—and then clarifies, because they’ve both known what Sweet Pea’s wanted for a while now, “Does he wanna be?”

“I don’t know,” Sweet Pea says, and he really doesn’t. “But we’re good now, either way.”

It isn’t really an answer, or anything concrete, but Jones seems to accept it for what it is. 

“What about you and Andrews?”

Jones pauses, peering into his own cup of noodle for a moment, and shrugs. “I don’t know,” he echoes. “But… I think we’re okay, too.”

“Huh,” Sweet Pea says. How about that.

There’s a comfortable pause, and he considers something he’s had on him mind for—well, not that long. But, like he said before, the vibe is different. Not off, anymore, just… different. Neither of them have tried to start anything since that time Sweet Pea had a very low grade breakdown or panic attack or whatever Toni would call it. They also haven’t really talked about it, like at all—which isn’t a huge surprise, considering they didn’t really discuss their whole… thing beyond that messy first day, but he’s pretty sure ending something is a little different than starting it.

If only he’d gotten any better at starting important conversations that he actually gives a shit about the outcome of. At least he doesn’t just hover awkwardly like Andrews does; he hasn’t sunk to that level yet.

“So,” he says, “Not really how to say this nicely, but. Are you cool with, like, ending… things?”

Jones takes a moment to swallow his food, barely balking at the sudden subject change. 

After a second, he says, “I mean, sure. I knew this wasn’t permanent or anything.”

Sweet Pea tries not to look too relieved; he thinks this might be the most painless Serious Conversation he’s had in weeks. Months, even. “Cool. Just wanted to make sure you didn’t fall in love with me.”

“You wish.” He’s smiling, though, something small and fond. 

“So we’re cool?” he finds himself asking, just to be sure.

“Yeah,” Jughead says, “I mean, I don’t wanna be a homewrecker or anything.” 

Sweet Pea actually laughs at that. “Y’know, Fangs said the same shit.” 

Jones snorts a laugh, too. “Same brain cell, I guess.” 

“Yeah right—Toni has all the brain cells; that’s why she’s vice president.”

“And you’re president because you have none?”

“I mean, yeah.”

Jones seems to consider this, and shrugs. “Yeah,” he agrees, and that’s it. 

They stay there, like that, for a moment. The quiet hum of the refrigerator and how comfortably he fits in the shitty fold up chair he’s sitting on. The way Jones’ converse bump against the cabinet door as he swings his legs. Something passes, and then it’s gone. It was nice while it lasted. He’ll never say it out loud, even under threat of death, but he appreciates it, this brief, messy time they had.

“It was nice while it lasted, huh,” is what he does say out loud, because he feels like he owes it to Jones to say it.

Jones looks a little surprised, but that passes, too. He smiles that fond little smile again and shrugs and says, “Yeah. You definitely improved, like in the kiss department—good to know you won’t embarrass yourself with Fangs.” 

He pushes down a similar rush of endearment for this asshole. “Man, whatever. If you strike out with Andrews, don’t come crawling back.”

“Like you wouldn’t be down for a pity fuck,” Jones scoffs, not even bothering to deny the thing with Andrews anymore. 

“Like it would even be a fuck.” 

“Pity kiss?”

“A single kiss? That _would_ be pretty sad.”

“Pity make out session.” 

“Maybe if you’re really nice about asking.” 

Jones rolls his eyes, but he can’t quite hide his smile behind his cup. 

His knee still aches a little when he bends it and his nose is still broken and he’s pretty sure he has an English essay due tomorrow that he definitely hasn’t started, but Sweet Pea thinks that, all in all, it’s been a pretty decent weekend. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sweet pea after going like 8 days without talking to fangs: what the fuck. i think im dying
> 
> drop a comment to celebrate the s5 trailer dropping 😳😳😳 and also my semester being OVER and come vibe w me on [t*mblr](http://gaycinema.tumblr.com/) if u wanna. hope everyone is doing alr and staying safe <3


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